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Jurji Zaydan | After briefly serving as assistant editor for al-Muqtataf, Zaydan began producing scholarly works on various historical topics. His interest in history propelled him to travel to London to research Arabic history in the library of the British Museum.
His first book was published in 1889 with Ta'rikh al-Masuniya al-Amm in which he aimed to correct misconceptions about the Freemasons of which he was a member of the "Le Liban" lodge. The Freemason belief that universal knowledge existed and should be available to every person appealed to intellectuals like Zaydan as well as their quest to tap into this knowledge.
In 1890, he published al-Ta'rikh al-'Alamm (History of the World), a rather thin history of Asia and of Africa with a focus on the Middle East. Still, it is cited as one of the first non-Islamic histories to be written in Arabic, marking a turning point in the development of modern Arab education. Before, the entirety of Arab history had been recorded by the ulama, the religious scholars of the Caliphate. It was the first attempt at recording a nonreligious version of Middle Eastern history.
He then taught Arabic and opened a publishing house that he named Dar al-Hilal (The Crescent). His professional and personal life took a turn in 1891, with his marriage to Maryam Matar and the publication of his first historical novel, al-Mamluk al-Shariid (The Fleeing Mamluk). The novel met with such broad success that he was able to quit his teaching job. He would continue to steadily produce roughly one novel a year until his death in 1914.
He began publishing his most influential project, the magazine Al-Hilal (The Crescent) in 1892. It originally contained five sections: a history of the most famous men and events; articles by him or other writers, serialization of his historical novels, monthly events and world news of Egypt and Syria, and eulogies and criticism about mostly contemporary literature. With its focus on informing the public about Islamic history and new concepts within Western civilization, the magazine often took on an encyclopedic tone.
His primary aim remained steady throughout his publication of Al-Hilal and his historical novels: to provide the common Arabic people with an accurate sense of their own history in an accessible, entertaining way. Historical accuracy thus took firm precedence over plot and character development in each of his novels, and he was often critical of Western writers who bent historical fact to fit their literature, claiming such liberties misled the general public. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurji_Zaydan |
Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia | The Bedouin were introduced to Meccan ritualistic practices as they frequented settled towns of the Hejaz during the four months of the "holy truce", the first three of which were devoted to religious observance, while the fourth was set aside for trade. Alan Jones infers from Bedouin poetry that the gods, even Allah, were less important to the Bedouins than Fate. They seem to have had little trust in rituals and pilgrimages as means of propitiating Fate, but had recourse to divination and soothsayers (kahins). The Bedouins regarded some trees, wells, caves and stones as sacred objects, either as fetishes or as means of reaching a deity. They created sanctuaries where people could worship fetishes.
The Bedouins had a code of honor which Fazlur Rahman Malik states may be regarded as their religious ethics. This code encompassed women, bravery, hospitality, honouring one's promises and pacts, and vengeance. They believed that the ghost of a slain person would cry out from the grave until their thirst for blood was quenched. Practices such as killing of infant girls were often regarded as having religious sanction. Numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion. However, there is evidence that the word jinn is derived from Aramaic, ginnaye, which was widely attested in Palmyrene inscriptions. The Aramaic word was used by Christians to designate pagan gods reduced to the status of demons, and was introduced into Arabic folklore only late in the pre-Islamic era. Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy and dark places and that they were feared. One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult.
Bedouin religious experience also included an apparently indigenous cult of ancestors. The dead were not regarded as powerful, but rather as deprived of protection and needing charity of the living as a continuation of social obligations beyond the grave. Only certain ancestors, especially heroes from which the tribe was said to derive its name, seem to have been objects of real veneration. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_pre-Islamic_Arabia |
Knights Hospitaller | With their diminished strength and relocation to Malta in the central Mediterranean, the knights found themselves devoid of their founding mission: assisting and joining the crusades in the Holy Land. Revenues subsequently dwindled as European sponsors were no longer willing to support a costly and seemingly redundant organization. The knights were forced to make do with their maritime location and turn to combating the increased threat of piracy, particularly from the Ottoman-endorsed Barbary pirates operating out of North Africa. Boosted by an air of invincibility following the successful defence of their island in 1565, and compounded by the Christian victory over the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the knights set about protecting Christian merchant shipping to and from the Levant and freeing the captured Christian slaves who formed the basis of the Barbary corsairs' piratical trading and navies. This campaign became known as the "corso".: 107
Yet the Order soon struggled on a now reduced income. By policing the Mediterranean, they augmented the assumed responsibility of the traditional protectors of the Mediterranean, the naval city states of Venice and Genoa. Further compounding their financial woes; over the course of this period, the exchange rate of the local currencies against the 'scudo' that were established in the late 16th century gradually became outdated, meaning the knights were gradually receiving less at merchant factories. Economically hindered by the barren island they now inhabited, many knights went beyond their call of duty by raiding Muslim ships.: 109 More and more ships were plundered, from whose profits many knights lived idly and luxuriously, taking local women to be their wives and enrolling in the navies of France and Spain in search of adventure, experience, and yet more money.: 97
The Knights' changing attitudes were coupled with the effects of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the lack of stability from the Roman Catholic Church. All this affected the knights strongly as the 16th and 17th centuries saw a gradual decline in the religious attitudes of many of the Christian peoples of Europe (and, concomitantly, the importance of a religious army), and thus in the Knights' regular tributes from European nations. That the knights, a chiefly Roman Catholic military order, pursued the readmittance of England as one of its member states – the Order there had been suppressed under King Henry VIII of England during the dissolution of the monasteries – upon the succession of the Protestant queen Elizabeth I of England aptly demonstrates the new religious tolerance within the Order.: 326 For a time, the Order even possessed a German langue which was part Protestant or Evangelical and part Roman Catholic.
The moral decline that the knights underwent over the course of this period is best highlighted by the decision of many knights to serve in foreign navies and become "the mercenary sea-dogs of the 14th to 17th centuries", with the French Navy proving the most popular destination.: 432 This decision went against the knights' cardinal reason for existence, in that by serving a European power directly they faced the very real possibility that they would be fighting against another Roman Catholic force, as in the few Franco-Spanish naval skirmishes that occurred in this period.: 434 The biggest paradox is the fact that for many years the Kingdom of France remained on amicable terms with the Ottoman Empire, the Knights' greatest and bitterest foe and purported sole purpose for existence. Paris signed many trade agreements with the Ottomans and agreed to an informal (and ultimately ineffective) cease-fire between the two states during this period.: 324 That the Knights associated themselves with the allies of their sworn enemies shows their moral ambivalence and the new commercial-minded nature of the Mediterranean in the 17th century. Serving in a foreign navy, in particular that of the French, gave the Knights the chance to serve the Church and for many, their King, to increase their chances of promotion in either their adopted navy or in Malta, to receive far better pay, to stave off their boredom with frequent cruises, to embark on the highly preferable short cruises of the French Navy over the long caravans favoured by the Maltese, and if the Knight desired, to indulge in some of the pleasures of a traditional debauched seaport.: 423–433 In return, the French gained and quickly assembled an experienced navy to stave off the threat of the Spanish and their Habsburg masters. The shift in attitudes of the Knights over this period is ably outlined by Paul Lacroix, who states:
Inflated with wealth, laden with privileges which gave them almost sovereign powers ... the order at last became so demoralised by luxury and idleness that it forgot the aim for which it was founded, and gave itself up for the love of gain and thirst for pleasure. Its covetousness and pride soon became boundless. The Knights pretended that they were above the reach of crowned heads: they seized and pillaged without concern of the property of both infidels and Christians."
With the knights' exploits growing in fame and wealth, the European states became more complacent about the Order, and more unwilling to grant money to an institution that was perceived to be earning a healthy sum on the high seas. Thus, a vicious cycle occurred, increasing the raids and reducing the grants received from the nation-states of Christendom to such an extent that the balance of payments on the island had become dependent on conquest.: 97 The European powers lost interest in the knights as they focused their intentions largely on one another during the Thirty Years' War. In February 1641 a letter was sent from an unknown dignitary in the Maltese capital of Valletta to the knights' most trustworthy ally and benefactor, Louis XIV of France, stating the Order's troubles:
Italy provides us with nothing much; Bohemia and Germany hardly anything, and England and the Netherlands for a long time now nothing at all. We only have something to keep us going, Sire, in your own Kingdom and in Spain.: 338
Maltese authorities did not mention the fact that they were making a substantial profit policing the seas and seizing infidel ships and cargoes. The authorities on Malta immediately recognised the importance of corsairing to their economy and set about encouraging it, as despite their vows of poverty, the Knights were granted the ability to keep a portion of the spoglio, which was the prize money and cargo gained from a captured ship, along with the ability to fit out their own galleys with their new wealth.: 274
The great controversy that surrounded the knights' corso was their insistence on their policy of 'vista'. This enabled the Order to stop and board all shipping suspected of carrying Turkish goods and confiscate the cargo to be re-sold at Valletta, along with the ship's crew, who were by far the most valuable commodity on the ship. Naturally, many nations claimed to be victims of the knights' over-eagerness to stop and confiscate any goods remotely connected to the Turks.: 109 In an effort to regulate the growing problem, the authorities in Malta established a judicial court, the Consiglio del Mer, where captains who felt wronged could plead their case, often successfully. The practice of issuing privateering licenses and thus state endorsement, which had been in existence for a number of years, was tightly regulated as the island's government attempted to haul in the unscrupulous knights and appease the European powers and limited benefactors. Yet these efforts were not altogether successful, as the Consiglio del Mer received numerous complaints around the year 1700 of Maltese piracy in the region. Ultimately, the rampant over-indulgence in privateering in the Mediterranean was to be the knights' downfall in this particular period of their existence as they transformed from serving as the military outpost of a united Christendom to becoming another nation-state in a commercially oriented continent soon to be overtaken by the trading nations of the North Sea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Hospitaller |
Bandung Conference | Acharya, Amitav. "Studying the Bandung conference from a Global IR perspective." Australian Journal of International Affairs 70.4 (2016): 342–357. Online Archived 1 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Acharya, Amitav. "Who are the norm makers? The Asian-African conference in Bandung and the evolution of norms." Global Governance 20.3 (2014): 405–417. Online
Asia-Africa Speaks From Bandung. Jakarta: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 1955.
Ampiah, Kweku. The Political and Moral Imperatives of the Bandung Conference of 1955 : the Reactions of the US, UK and Japan. Folkestone, UK : Global Oriental, 2007. ISBN 1-905246-40-4
Brown, Colin. 2012. "The Bandung Conference and Indonesian Foreign Policy", Ch 9 in Anne Booth, Chris Manning and Thee Kian Wie, 2012, Essays in Honour of Joan Hardjono, Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia.
Burke, Roland. "The compelling dialogue of freedom: Human rights at the Bandung Conference." Human Rights Quarterly 28 (2006): 947+.
Dinkel, Jürgen, The Non-Aligned Movement. Genesis, Organization and Politics (1927–1992), New Perspectives on the Cold War 5, Brill: Leiden/Boston 2019. ISBN 978-90-04-33613-1
Finnane, Antonia, and Derek McDougall, eds, Bandung 1955: Little Histories. Melbourne: Monash Asia Institute, 2010. ISBN 978-1-876924-73-7
Kahin, George McTurnan. The Asian-African Conference: Bandung, Indonesia, April 1955. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956.
Lee, Christopher J., ed, Making a World After Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0896802773
Mackie, Jamie. Bandung 1955: Non-Alignment and Afro-Asian Solidarity. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2005. ISBN 981-4155-49-7
Parker, Jason C. "Small Victory, Missed Chance: The Eisenhower Administration, the Bandung Conference, and the Turning of the Cold War." In The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War. Ed. Kathryn C. Statler & Andrew L. Johns. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. ISBN 0742553817
Parker, Jason. "Cold War II: The Eisenhower Administration, the Bandung Conference, and the reperiodization of the postwar era." Diplomatic History 30.5 (2006): 867–892.
Shimazu, Naoko. "Diplomacy as theatre: staging the Bandung Conference of 1955." Modern Asian Studies 48.1 (2014): 225–252. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X13000371
Wood, Sally Percival. "‘Chou gags critics in BANDOENG or How the Media Framed Premier Zhou Enlai at the Bandung Conference, 1955" Modern Asian Studies 44.5 (2010): 1001–1027.
Pahlefi, Riza (11 August 2022). BENGKALIS: NEGERI JELAPANG PADI (in Indonesian). CV. DOTPLUS Publisher. ISBN 978-623-6428-59-7. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandung_Conference |
Special Operation Forces (Jordan) | The Prince Hashem School for Special Operations serves to train and qualify officers and NCOs from JAF.
The school went through the following key phases in terms of organization and development
in 1963 The first ranger and airborne course was trained by American training team and Ranger and Airborne training wing was established in infantry school.
In 1970 Ranger and Airborne training wing was established in RSF.
In 1979 Special forces school was formed and continued to evolve until 1983, where four were formed.
In 1983 Four training wings (ranger, airborne, specialization and field) were established.
In 1995 The organization was advanced with a new battalions system and free fall center was added.
On 1 October 1996 the name has been modified and was called "Joint Special Operations School."
On 24/12/2001 special operations school was renamed Prince Hashem bin Al Hussein School for Special Operations.
In 2017, the school transferred from special forces to Army Training Command.
School Goals and Duties
The preparation and training of special operations officers on Common functions.
The preparation and training of joint special operations commissioned officers.
The preparation and training of juvenile soldiers basic training and specialist training.
The preparation and training of members of the armed forces through special training.
Training of Public security, civil defense, customs and General Intelligence personnel.
Training members of friendly States on rangers and paratroopers and other special forces works.
The training of graduates of university officers (field) in addition to the pupils and candidates from Mutah University on rangers and paratroopers.
Participate in the testing of new weapons and gear mechanisms and sufficiency of Joint special operations duties.
Conduct annual tests for units and formations Joint special operations and the armed forces.
School Courses
Platoon Commander's Basic Tactics Course
English Language Training Course For Officers/NCO
Ranger Course
Ranger and Airborne Instruction Course
Airborne Course
Air Assault Course
Fighting In Built Up Areas and Internal Security
Hand To Hand Fighting (Sejal)
Marksmanship and Range Management Course
Special Operations Selection Course (officers and other ranks)
Section and Group Commanders
Packing And Parachute Maintenance
Free Fall Course
Jump Masters Course
Pathfinders Course
Airborne Infiltration Course
Strategic Reconnaissance Course | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operation_Forces_(Jordan) |
Afghan Arabs | The departure of the Soviets led to the start of the Afghan Civil War between Afghan Government forces and the so-called "Interim Afghan Government", Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda participated in the failed Battle of Jalalabad, Bin Laden personally led 800 Arabs to immobilize the 7th Sarandoy regiment but failed to do so leading to many casualties. At least 300 Arabs were killed by Afghan Forces during the Battle. The President of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah was highly critical of Arab involvement in Afghanistan, claiming Wahabi Arabs would destroy Afghan values and culture and lead to an American invasion in the future. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Najibullah Government lost its most important trading partner. The new Russian government under Boris Yeltsin cut exports to Najibullah's Government and in 1992 President Najibullah was removed from power by 4 of his Generals and the Homeland Party government in Kabul ceased to exist in April 1992. After this, some foreign mujahideen stayed in Afghanistan participating in the following Civil War caused by the power vacuum left behind from the dissolved Afghan Military. These Arab foreign fighters served as the essential core of the foot soldiers of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, bin Laden being seen, according to journalist Lawrence Wright, as "the undisputed leader of the Arab Afghans" by fall of 1989.
Others returned "with their experience, ideology, and weapons," to their home (or other Muslim) countries, often proceeding to fight jihad against the government there. However minimal the impact of the "Afghan" Arabs on the war against the Soviets, the return of the volunteers to their home countries was often not. In Foreign Affairs Peter Bergen writes:
The foreign volunteers in Afghanistan saw the Soviet defeat as a victory for Islam against a superpower that had invaded a Muslim country. Estimates of the number of foreign fighters who fought in Afghanistan begin in the low thousands; some spent years in combat, while others came only for what amounted to a jihad vacation. The jihadists gained legitimacy and prestige from their triumph both within the militant community and among ordinary Muslims, as well as the confidence to carry their jihad to other countries where they believed Muslims required assistance. When veterans of the guerrilla campaign returned home with their experience, ideology, and weapons, they destabilized once-tranquil countries and inflamed already unstable ones.
Three countries where Afghan Arabs had the biggest impact immediately following the war were Bosnia-Herzegovina, where they fought against Bosnian Serbs and Croats, Algeria and Egypt, where they fought the respective governments. According to Compass, 2,000 Egyptians and 2,800 Algerians were trained for combat in the Pakistan border area though not all of these volunteers saw action in Afghanistan. Several hundred had recently returned home by 1992.
In Bosnia the war ended with peace accords and American peacekeeping troops rather than sharia law. In both Algeria and Egypt after much blood letting the Islamist movement lost popular support and the government prevailed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Arabs |
Neolithic Revolution | Compared to foragers, Neolithic farmers' diets were higher in carbohydrates but lower in fibre, micronutrients, and protein. This led to an increase in the frequency of carious teeth and slower growth in childhood and increased body fat, and studies have consistently found that populations around the world became shorter after the transition to agriculture. This trend may have been exacerbated by the greater seasonality of farming diets and with it the increased risk of famine due to crop failure.
Throughout the development of sedentary societies, disease spread more rapidly than it had during the time in which hunter-gatherer societies existed. Inadequate sanitary practices and the domestication of animals may explain the rise in deaths and sickness following the Neolithic Revolution, as diseases jumped from the animal to the human population. Some examples of infectious diseases spread from animals to humans are influenza, smallpox, and measles. Ancient microbial genomics has shown that progenitors to human-adapted strains of Salmonella enterica infected up to 5,500 year old agro-pastoralists throughout Western Eurasia, providing molecular evidence for the hypothesis that the Neolithization process facilitated the emergence of Salmonella entericia. In concordance with a process of natural selection, the humans who first domesticated the big mammals quickly built up immunities to the diseases as within each generation the individuals with better immunities had better chances of survival. In their approximately 10,000 years of shared proximity with animals, such as cows, Eurasians and Africans became more resistant to those diseases compared with the indigenous populations encountered outside Eurasia and Africa. For instance, the population of most Caribbean and several Pacific Islands have been completely wiped out by diseases. 90% or more of many populations of the Americas were wiped out by European and African diseases before recorded contact with European explorers or colonists. Some cultures like the Inca Empire did have a large domestic mammal, the llama, but llama milk was not drunk, nor did llamas live in a closed space with humans, so the risk of contagion was limited. According to bioarchaeological research, the effects of agriculture on dental health in Southeast Asian rice farming societies from 4000 to 1500 BP was not detrimental to the same extent as in other world regions.
Jonathan C. K. Wells and Jay T. Stock have argued that the dietary changes and increased pathogen exposure associated with agriculture profoundly altered human biology and life history, creating conditions where natural selection favoured the allocation of resources towards reproduction over somatic effort. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution |
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi | Unlike Hosni Mubarak, el-Sisi is protective of the privacy of his family, even though two of his sons hold positions in the government. He is married to his cousin Entissar Amer, and is the father of three sons and one daughter. One of his sons is married to the daughter of former Egyptian army chief Mahmoud Hegazy.
El-Sisi comes from a religious family and frequently quotes Quranic verses during informal conversations; El-Sisi's wife wears the hijab, though usually a casual kind that covers the hair but not the neck. El-Sisi is known to be quiet and is often called the Quiet General. Even as a young man he was often called "General Sisi" due to his perceived orderly demeanor.
According to Sherifa Zuhur, a professor at the War College, when el-Sisi attended, many American officers expressed doubts that Muslims could be democratic. El-Sisi disputed this opinion; he and others were critical of decisions made in Iraq and Libya. El-Sisi wrote his term paper at the War College on democracy and its applications in the Middle East. In his paper, he argues in favour of democracy based on its past successes. Zuhur also had the impression that el-Sisi supported a gradual move towards pluralism. While at the War College, Sisi sometimes led Friday prayers at the local mosque.
Sisi described himself as "a doctor whose diagnoses are sought after by top philosophers and prominent world leaders". Upon his ascension to the presidency, Sisi's public persona was characterized by British newspaper The Guardian as one marked by "calmness and piety with a mixture of austerity and warmth".
In 2013, El-Sisi became one of the most popular political figures in Egypt. Since becoming president his popularity has slowly decreased, with him being labeled authoritarian by several individuals. His economic policies, including the increasing price of the United States dollar, first in 2016, then in the early 2020s has been scrutinised. El-Sisi's handling of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war has also been criticised by some figures, specifically his refusal to let Palestinian refugees enter Egypt. El-Sisi has been nicknamed "the Mexican" by Egyptians critical of his leadership, owing to the similarity between his name and the word "El-Meksisi", and also in reference to Joe Biden erroneously calling Sisi the president of Mexico. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdel_Fattah_el-Sisi |
Deir al-Balah | Deir al-Balah was built on the ruins of the Crusader fort of Darom (also referred to as "Doron") which was built by King Amalric I. The exact date of the fort's construction is unknown, although it was likely erected after 1153 following Amalric's capture of Ascalon to the north from the Fatimid Caliphate. As described by William of Tyre, the fort was small, tantum spatium intra se continens quantum est jactus lapidis (containing inside as much space as a stone's throw) and square-shaped with four towers, one of which was larger than the others. Amalric used Darom as a launching point for several unsuccessful military campaigns against Fatimid Egypt. In addition to its role as a frontier fort on the border of Egypt, Darom also served as an administrative center charged with collecting taxes from the southern areas of the kingdom and customs from caravans and travelers coming from Egypt. It was deemed a permanent threat by the rulers of Egypt.
Not long after its construction, a small suburb or village with a church was established by local farmers and traders just outside the fort. According to medieval chronicler William of Tyre, "it was a pleasant spot where conditions of life for people of the lower ranks were better than in cities". The population of the village consisted of indigenous Eastern Orthodox Christians allied to and protected by the Crusader administration and garrison based in the fort. The inhabitants were considered lower-class, but integral members of society by the Crusaders of European or mixed descent. Because Darom was absent of Greek bishops, in 1168 Pope Alexander III gave the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem direct jurisdiction over the dioceses, putting the largely Greek Orthodox inhabitants under the authority of the Catholic Church.
Following Amalric's withdrawal from his fifth offensive against Egypt in 1170, Muslim general Saladin, fighting on behalf of the Fatimids, attacked and besieged the fortress as part of his foray into the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Despite initial gains, Darom was not captured or destroyed. It later became a stronghold of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller from Jerusalem, led by King Baldwin III. After the Muslim army defeated the Crusaders in the decisive Battle of Hattin in 1187, their leader Saladin, by then the independent sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty, advanced south and captured both Ascalon and Darom by 1188. His first order was the fort's demolition, but he later decided against destroying it. Instead, the fortress was substantially expanded and strengthened. "Darum", which is what the Muslims called the fortress village, was encased by a wall with 17 strong towers protected by a deep moat with stone-paved sides. It hosted a garrison commanded by the emir (commander) Alam ad-Din Qaysar and served as a store for supplies and ammunition.
The Crusaders recaptured the fortress on 24 May 1191 after a short siege commanded by King Richard the Lionheart. Authority over Darum was assigned to Count Henry I of Champagne, but Richard later had the fortress demolished in July 1193 prior to withdrawing his forces from Ascalon. The Ayyubids rebuilt the fortress soon after in order to use it as a bridgehead to reconquer territories lost in Palestine during the Third Crusade. Nonetheless, in 1196, Sultan al-Aziz Uthman decided to have it demolished in case of its capture by the Crusaders. According to 15th-century historian al-Maqrizi, this decision resulted in public resentment since travelers and merchants had significantly benefited from the fort's protection. In 1226, Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited Darum and noted it was one of the cities of Lot and contained a ruined castle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_al-Balah |
Wars of Alexander the Great | The Siege of Tyre occurred in 332 BC when Alexander set out to conquer Tyre, a strategic coastal base. Tyre was the site of the only remaining Persian port that did not capitulate to Alexander. Even by this point in the war, the Persian navy still posed a major threat to Alexander. Tyre, the largest and most important city-state of Phoenicia, was located both on the Mediterranean coast as well as a nearby Island with two natural harbors on the landward side. At the time of the siege, the city held approximately 40,000 people, though the women and children were evacuated to Carthage, an ancient Phoenician colony.
Alexander sent an envoy to Tyre, proposing a peace treaty, and asked to visit their city and offer sacrifices to their God Melqart. The Tyrians politely told Alexander that their town was neutral in the war, and that allowing him to offer sacrifices to Melqart would be tantamount to recognizing him as their king. Alexander considered building a causeway that would allow his army to take the town by force. His engineers did not believe it would be possible to build such a massive structure, and so Alexander sent peace envoys once more to propose an alliance. The Tyrians believed this to be a sign of weakness, and so they killed the envoys and threw their bodies over the city wall. The dissent against Alexander's plans to take the city by force disappeared, and his engineers began to design the structure. Alexander began with an engineering feat that shows the true extent of his brilliance; as he could not attack the city from sea, he built a kilometer-long causeway stretching out to the island on a natural land bridge no more than two meters deep. Alexander then constructed two towers 150 feet high and moved them to the end of the causeway. The Tyrians, however, quickly devised a counterattack. They used an old horse transport ship, filling it with dried branches, pitch, sulfur, and various other combustibles. They then lit it on fire, creating what we might call a primitive form of napalm, and ran it up onto the causeway. The fire spread quickly, engulfing both towers and other siege equipment that had been brought up.
This convinced Alexander that he would be unable to take Tyre without a navy. Fate would soon provide him with one. Presently, the Persian navy returned to find their home cities under Alexander's control. Since their allegiance was to their city, they were therefore Alexander's. He now had eighty ships. This coincided with the arrival of another hundred and twenty from Cyprus, which had heard of his victories and wished to join him. Alexander then sailed on Tyre and quickly blockaded both ports with his superior numbers. He had several of the slower galleys, and a few barges, refit with battering rams, the only known case of battering rams being used on ships. Alexander started testing the wall at various points with his rams, until he made a small breach in the south end of the island. He then coordinated an attack across the breach with a bombardment from all sides by his navy. Once his troops forced their way into the city, they easily overtook the garrison, and quickly captured the city. Those citizens that took shelter in the temple of Heracles were pardoned by Alexander. It is said that Alexander was so enraged at the Tyrians' defense and the loss of his men that he destroyed half the city. Alexander granted pardon to the king and his family, whilst 30,000 residents and foreigners taken were sold into slavery. There was a family, though, that Alexander gave a very high position in his government, but the only contact he ever had with them was when he spent the night with the wife of the household. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Alexander_the_Great |
Tassili n'Ajjer | In 1989, the psychedelics researcher Giorgio Samorini proposed the theory that the fungoid-like paintings in the caves of Tassili are proof of the relationship between humans and psychedelics in the ancient populations of the Sahara, when it was still a verdant land:
One of the most important scenes is to be found in the Tin-Tazarift rock art site, at Tassili, in which we find a series of masked figures in line and hieratically dressed or dressed as dancers surrounded by long and lively festoons of geometrical designs of different kinds... Each dancer holds a mushroom-like object in the right hand and, even more surprising, two parallel lines come out of this object to reach the central part of the head of the dancer, the area of the roots of the two horns. This double line could signify an indirect association or non-material fluid passing from the object held in the right hand and the mind. This interpretation would coincide with the mushroom interpretation if we bear in mind the universal mental value induced by hallucinogenic mushrooms and vegetals, which is often of a mystical and spiritual nature (Dobkin de Rios, 1984:194). It would seem that these lines – in themselves an ideogram that represents something non-material in ancient art – represent the effect that the mushroom has on the human mind... In a shelter in Tin – Abouteka, in Tassili, there is a motif appearing at least twice that associates mushrooms and fish; a unique association of symbols among ethno-mycological cultures... Two mushrooms are depicted opposite each other, in a perpendicular position about the fish motif and near the tail. Not far from here, above, we find other fish which are similar to the aforementioned, but without the side-mushrooms.
This theory was reused by Terence McKenna in his 1992 book Food of the Gods, hypothesizing that the Neolithic culture that inhabited the site used psilocybin mushrooms as part of its religious ritual life, citing rock paintings showing persons holding mushroom-like objects in their hands, as well as mushrooms growing from their bodies. For Henri Lhote, who discovered the Tassili caves in the late 1950s, these were obviously secret sanctuaries.
The painting that best supports the mushroom hypothesis is the Tassili mushroom figure Matalem-Amazar where the body of the represented shaman is covered with mushrooms. According to Earl Lee in his book From the Bodies of the Gods: Psychoactive Plants and the Cults of the Dead (2012), this imagery refers to an ancient episode where a "mushroom shaman" was buried while fully clothed and when unearthed sometime later, tiny mushrooms would be growing on the clothes. Earl Lee considered the mushroom paintings at Tassili fairly realistic.
According to Brian Akers, writer for the Mushroom journal, the fungoid rock art in Tassili does not resemble the representations of the Psilocybe hispanica in the Selva Pascuala caves (2015), and he doesn't consider it realistic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tassili_n%27Ajjer |
Abbas the Great | The Qizilbash had provided the backbone of the Safavid army from the very beginning of Safavid rule and they also occupied many posts in the government. As a result, effective power in the state in the early days of the dynasty was held by the Qizilbash, leaving the shah often powerless. To counterbalance their power and as a decisive answer to this problem, Abbas turned to the newly introduced members of Iranian society (an initiative put in place by Shah Tahmasp I) the ghulams (a word literally meaning "slaves"). From these newly introduced slaves, the Shah created a military force of up to 37,000 soldiers, completely funded by the Crown. This weakened the power that the Qizilbash had against the crown significantly as they no longer had a "military monopoly" in Iran. Like the janissaries of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, the ghulams were mainly Georgians, Circassians and Armenians who had been brought into Iran en masse (by conquest and slave trade), had converted or had been converted to Islam, and had taken up service in the army, royal household or the civil administration, and were loyal only to the shah. Under Abbas' leadership this new grouping in Iranian society (also called the third force) grew in influence and power, with many thousands of ethnic Georgians, Circassians and Armenians becoming an integral part of Iranian society and taking up key government, royal household and military positions.
Tahmasp I, the second Safavid shah, had realised, by looking at his own empire and that of the neighbouring Ottomans, that he faced ongoing threats from dangerous rival factions and internal family rivalries that were a threat to him as the head of state. If not properly managed, these rivalries represented a serious threat to the ruler or could lead to unnecessary court intrigues. For Tahmasp, the problem revolved around the military tribal elite of the empire, the Qizilbash, who believed that physical proximity to and control of a member of the immediate Safavid family guaranteed spiritual advantages, political fortune and material advancement.
Therefore, between 1540 and 1555, Tahmasp conducted a series of invasions of the Caucasus region which provided battle experience for his soldiers, as well as leading to the capture of large numbers of Christian Circassian and Georgian slaves (30,000 in just four raids). These slaves would form the basis of a Safavid military slave system. These slaves would serve a similar role in their formation, implementation and use to the janissaries of the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. Their arrival in such large numbers led to the formation of a new grouping in Iranian society solely composed of ethnic Caucasians. Although the first slave soldiers would not be organised until Abbas' reign, during Tahmasp's time Caucasians would already become important members of the royal household, the harem and in the civil and military administration.
Learning from his grandfather, Abbas (who had been used by the vying Qizilbash factions during his youth) decided to encourage this new (Caucasian) grouping in Iranian society, as he realised that he must impose his authority on the Qezelbāš or remain their puppet. So Abbas single-handedly encouraged the growth in influence and power of this new grouping, also called the third force. It is estimated that during Abbas' reign alone some 130,000 to 200,000 Georgians, tens of thousands of Circassians, and around 300,000 Armenians were deported from the Caucasus to Persia's heartland, with a significant number gaining responsibilities and roles in Iranian society, including some of the highest positions of the state, including the ghulam corps. Many of those deported from the Caucasus settled in various regions of Iran and became craftsmen, farmers, cattle breeders, traders, soldiers, generals, governors and peasants within Iranian society. As part of the ghulam slave system, Abbas greatly expanded the ghulam military corps (also known as ḡolāmān-e ḵāṣṣa-ye-e šarifa, "crown servants") from just a few hundred during Tahmasp's era, to 15,000 highly trained cavalrymen, as part of a whole army division of 40,000 Caucasian ghulams. Abbas then reduced the number of Qizilbash provincial governorships and systematically moved Qizilbash governors to other districts, thus disrupting their ties with the local community and reducing their power. Most were eventually replaced by ghulams, whose loyalty was to the shah.
By 1595, Allahverdi Khan, a Georgian, had become one of the most powerful men in the Safavid state when he was appointed the Governor-General of Fars, one of the richest provinces in Persia. His power reached its peak in 1598, when he became the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces. Not only did the ghulam system allow the shah to control and manage the rival Qizilbash Turks and Persians, it also resolved budgetary problems, in the short term at least, for by restoring the Shah's complete control of the provinces formerly governed by the Qizilbash chiefs, the provinces' revenues now supplemented the royal treasury. From now on, government officials collected the taxes and remitted them directly to the royal treasury. In the harem, the Circassians and Georgians rapidly replaced the Turcoman factions and, as a result, gained a significant direct influence on the meritocratic Safavid bureaucracy and the court of the Safavid state.
The increasing numbers of Georgians and Circassians in the Safavid bureaucracy and the court of the Safavid state vied with the Qizilbash for power and as a result also became involved in court intrigues. This competition for influence saw queens (and their supporters in the harem, court and bureaucracy) compete against each other in order to get their own sons on the throne. This competition increased under Abbas and his successors which weakened the dynasty considerably. Abbas' own son and crown prince, Mohammad Baqer Mirza, was caught in the court intrigue involving several leading Circassians, which eventually led to him being executed under Abbas' orders.
Though the ghulam system did not work as well as it had after the Safavids, the third force would continue to play a crucial role during the rest of the Safavid era and later until the fall of the Qajar dynasty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_the_Great |
List of armed factions in the Syrian Civil War | The group called Dā'ash or the Islamic State (abbrv. IS, ISIL or ISIS), began to make rapid military gains in Northern Syria starting in April 2013 and as of mid-2014 controlled large parts of that region, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described it as "the strongest group". The group strives to establish a global caliphate, by waging war on the "disbelievers". It has imposed strict Sharia law over land that it controls. The group was found by the Iraqi fighter Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and had an estimated 7,000 fighters in Syria, including many non-Syrians, by the end of 2013. IS was originally affiliated with al-Qaeda, until al-Qaeda officially severed ties with the group in early 2014.
The group gathered international attention for its gruesome abuses of human rights and for not tolerating non-Islamist militia groups, foreign journalists or aid workers, whose members it has expelled, imprisoned, or executed. Just across the border from Syria in Iraq, IS has carried out a genocide of the Yazidi people, killing hundreds of men, enslaving thousands of women and children and expelling the Yazidis from their homeland.
By summer 2014, ISIL controlled a third of Syria. It established itself as the dominant force of Syrian opposition, defeating Jabhat al-Nusra in Deir Ezzor Governorate and claiming control over most of Syria's oil and gas production. Mostly, the group was engaging in offensives against the Syrian Armed Forces and the Free Syrian Army, but they also targeted the Syrian Democratic Forces. ISIL have planted bombs in the ancient city area of Palmyra, which is counted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it is home to some of the most extensive and best-preserved ancient Roman ruins in the world. Having lost nearly half of their territory in Iraq between 2014 and 2016, some Islamic State leaders in Iraq moved into Syria, further destabilising the region.
Starting in 2014, an international coalition of states intervened against ISIL. A number of countries, including some individual NATO members, participated in air operations in Syria that came to be overseen by the Combined Joint Task Force, set up by the US Central Command to coordinate military efforts against ISIL pursuant to their collectively undertaken commitments, including those of 3 December 2014. Those who have conducted airstrikes in Syria include the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Some members are involved in the conflict beyond combating ISIL; Turkey has been accused of fighting against Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, including intelligence collaborations with ISIL in some cases. As of December 2017, Russia declared ISIL to be totally defeated within Syria. At the end of 2018, the US declared it defeated, although its UK and German allies disagreed. On 23 March 2019 the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces declared ISIS Defeated, after seizing their last enclave of territory. In October 2019, the US assassinated IS leader al-Baghdadi. ISIL named Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al-Qurayshi as Baghdadi's successor. As of 2024, ISIL continues to be active militarily in Northeast Syria, although it has lost almost all of its territory. Instead, most of the group's activity nowadays is carried out by affiliate branches in Afghanistan, Pakistan and various countries in Africa. Some international forces have remained in Syria to carry out missions against IS members and to prevent a resurgence of the movement. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_armed_factions_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War |
2012–2013 Egyptian protests | On the second anniversary of the beginning of the 2011 revolution, protests again erupted in cities across the country, following occasional skirmishes between protesters and police in Cairo the day before. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Tahrir Square during the day, with clashes between police forces and protesters occurring around the city at the Interior Ministry headquarters, state media offices and the presidential palace. Security forces fired tear gas at protesters trying to force their way into the presidential palace and state television offices. In the city of Suez, five people were killed by gunfire – four protesters and one security trooper. Protests also took place in Alexandria, Ismailia, Damanhur, and Port Said, many of which were focused on local government buildings. Tear gas use by police was reported in Alexandria, while protesters in that city and Suez burned tires. By the end of 25 January, about 280 protesters and 55 security personnel had been injured across the country.
On 26 January, the sentencing to death of 21 people for their roles in the Port Said Stadium disaster sparked further unrest in Port Said that resulted in 16 fatalities. The number of people killed in the city was 33. Many of them were killed by police snipers.
On 27 January, Egypt's government was reported to have lost control of Port Said as a result of the protests and attacks. The same day seven more people died from gun shots in the clashes during the funerals for 33 people who had been killed on 26 January in the city. There were also deadly clashes in Suez and Ismailia. As a result, Morsi announced a state of emergency in Suez Canal cities (namely Ismailia, Port Said and Suez) for 30 days, with a curfew from 9:00 p.m to 6:00 a.m, effective Monday, 28 January m. Morsi also invited eleven political parties, as well as four major political leaders, to talks concerning the unrest, but the leading opposition party, the National Salvation Front, refused to begin discussions until a new government was put in place and the country's constitution modified.
On 28 January, further demonstrations and clashes took place in eleven cities, including those in the Suez Canal, Alexandria, Monufia and Cairo. The clashes resulted in six deaths. Thousands of people gathered in the Tahrir Square to show their solidarity with those killed over the weekend early in the day. Police fired tear gas at protesters near the Qasr al-Nil Bridge, while further violence spread along the Nile. Protesters also set fire to security vehicles and detained a police officer. The Shura Council approved the President state of emergency decision as per the Constitution requirement. And to aid the police, it approved a law granting judicial seizure powers to the Army. A funeral procession in Port Said devolved into a street battle between mourners and police, with security troops firing tear gas and live ammunition at crowds from police buildings across the city; protesters threw rocks, explosives and gas canisters back at police, and by the end of the day civilians across the city were seen carrying guns and molotov cocktails. A Ministry of the Interior spokesman, however, denied that police had fired on protesters, and said that tear gas had been used only briefly. By the end of the day, a total of 50 people were estimated to have died since the January protests began.
On 29 January, Egypt's defense minister Abdul Fatah al-Sisi warned both pro- and anti-Morsi groups, arguing "their disagreement on running the affairs of the country may lead to the collapse of the state and threatened the future of the coming generations."
On 30 January, two protesters were shot dead by unknown assailants in Cairo, near Tahrir square. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Egyptian_protests |
Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict | Since he took power in 1995, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani believed Qatar could find security only by transforming itself from a Saudi appendage to a rival of Saudi Arabia. According to Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, "Qatar used to be a kind of Saudi vassal state, but it used the autonomy that its gas wealth created to carve out an independent role for itself... Above all, gas prompted Qatar to promote a regional policy of engagement with Shiite Iran to secure the source of its wealth". Qatar and Iran share ownership of the South Pars/North Dome Gas-Condensate field, by far the world's largest natural gas field, with significant geostrategic influence. To further offset Saudi influence, Qatar is a close ally of the United States, hosting the largest American base in the Middle East, Al Udeid Air Base. Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador to Doha from 2002 to 2008 to try to pressure Qatar to curb its individualistic tendencies. This approach broadly failed.
Qatar maintains relatively good relations with Iran. Saudi Arabia often frames the issue as a proxy battle between partners and adversaries of Iran. United Arab Emirates politicians claim that "Qatar invests billions of dollars in the U.S. and Europe and then recycles the profits to support Iranian-aligned Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and groups linked to al Qaeda. While Qatar hosts the American military base from which the U.S. directs its regional war against extremism, it also owns media networks responsible for inciting many of the same extremists". Qatar also used its contacts to help negotiate peaceful exchanges of hostages for the safe evacuation of civilians from areas affected by the Syrian Civil War. In 2006, Qatar was the only UN Security Council member to vote against United Nations Security Council Resolution 1696 that called on Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment program.
In April 2017, after a 12-year freeze, Qatar lifted a self-imposed ban on developing the gas field with Iran, that would require cooperation between the two countries. According to David Roberts, a Qatar foreign policy expert at King's College, London, if a conflict erupts between America and Iran, Qatar would literally be caught in the middle. "If you are Qatar, you look across the water and you think, when Iran did have the opportunity to take a few Arab islands, they did it." "Qatar needs to have the ability to peacefully go about their business of sucking all the gas out of that giant field." Iran could make that process very difficult. A senior fellow of Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations concludes that "There's a recognition of the general tendencies of the Gulf states to hedge their bets,"There's always a question in the back of the minds of the leadership--how much faith can they put in the U.S.?"
On 27 May 2017, the newly reelected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a phone call with Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Rouhani told Qatar's emir, "The countries of the region need more cooperation and consultations to resolve the crisis in the region and we are ready to cooperate in this field." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_diplomatic_conflict |
Mandatory Palestine | When the United Kingdom announced the independence of the Emirate of Transjordan as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946, the final Assembly of the League of Nations and the General Assembly both adopted resolutions welcoming the news. The Jewish Agency objected, claiming that Transjordan was an integral part of Palestine, and that according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, the Jewish people had a secured interest in its territory.
During the General Assembly deliberations on Palestine, there were suggestions that it would be desirable to incorporate part of Transjordan's territory into the proposed Jewish state. A few days before the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) on 29 November 1947, US Secretary of State Marshall noted frequent references had been made by the Ad Hoc Committee regarding the desirability of the Jewish State having both the Negev and an "outlet to the Red Sea and the Port of Aqaba". According to John Snetsinger, Chaim Weizmann visited President Truman on 19 November 1947 and said it was imperative that the Negev and Port of Aqaba be within the Jewish state. Truman telephoned the US delegation to the UN and told them he supported Weizmann's position. However, the Trans-Jordan memorandum excluded territories of the Emirate of Transjordan from any Jewish settlement.
Immediately after the UN resolution, civil war broke out between the Arab and Jewish communities, and British authority began to break down. On 16 December 1947, the Palestine Police Force withdrew from the Tel Aviv area, home to more than half the Jewish population, and turned over responsibility for the maintenance of law and order to Jewish police. As the civil war raged on, British military forces gradually withdrew from Palestine, although they occasionally intervened in favour of either side. Many of these areas became war zones. The British maintained strong presences in Jerusalem and Haifa, even as Jerusalem came under siege by Arab forces and became the scene of fierce fighting, though the British occasionally intervened in the fighting, largely to secure their evacuation routes, including by proclaiming martial law and enforcing truces. The Palestine Police Force was largely inoperative, and government services such as social welfare, water supplies, and postal services were withdrawn. In March 1948, all British judges in Palestine were sent back to Britain. In April 1948, the British withdrew from most of Haifa but retained an enclave in the port area to be used in the evacuation of British forces, and retained RAF Ramat David, an airbase close to Haifa, to cover their retreat, leaving behind a volunteer police force to maintain order. The city was quickly captured by the Haganah in the Battle of Haifa. After the victory, British forces in Jerusalem announced that they had no intention of overseeing any local administration but also that they would not permit actions that would hamper the safe and orderly withdrawal of their forces; military courts would try anybody who interfered. Although by this time British authority in most of Palestine had broken down, with most of the country in the hands of Jews or Arabs, the British air and sea blockade of Palestine remained in place. Although Arab volunteers were able to cross the borders between Palestine and the surrounding Arab states to join the fighting, the British did not allow the regular armies of the surrounding Arab states to cross into Palestine.
The British had notified the UN of their intent to terminate the mandate not later than 1 August 1948. However, early in 1948, the United Kingdom announced its firm intention to end its mandate in Palestine on 15 May. In response, President Harry S. Truman made a statement on 25 March proposing UN trusteeship rather than partition, stating that "unfortunately, it has become clear that the partition plan cannot be carried out at this time by peaceful means... unless emergency action is taken, there will be no public authority in Palestine on that date capable of preserving law and order. Violence and bloodshed will descend upon the Holy Land. Large-scale fighting among the people of that country will be the inevitable result". The British Parliament passed the necessary legislation to terminate the Mandate with the Palestine Bill, which received Royal assent on 29 April 1948.
By 14 May 1948, the only British forces remaining in Palestine were in the Haifa area and in Jerusalem. On that same day, the British garrison in Jerusalem withdrew, and the last High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham, left the city for Haifa, where he was to leave the country by sea. The Jewish leadership, led by the future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, on the afternoon of 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708 in the Hebrew calendar), to come into effect at the moment of termination of the Mandate at midnight. Also on the 14th, the Provisional Government of Israel asked the US Government for recognition, on the frontiers specified in the UN Plan for Partition. The United States immediately replied, recognizing "the provisional government as the de facto authority".
At midnight on 14/15 May 1948, the Mandate for Palestine expired, and the State of Israel came into being. The Palestine Government formally ceased to exist, the status of British forces still in the process of withdrawal from Haifa changed to occupiers of foreign territory, the Palestine Police Force formally stood down and was disbanded, with the remaining personnel evacuated alongside British military forces, the British blockade of Palestine was lifted, and all those who had been Palestinian citizens ceased to be British protected persons, with Mandatory Palestine passports no longer giving British protection. The 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight took place both before and after the end of the Mandate.
Over the next few days, approximately 700 Lebanese, 1,876 Syrian, 4,000 Iraqi, and 2,800 Egyptian troops crossed over the borders into Palestine, starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Around 4,500 Transjordanian troops, commanded partly by 38 British officers who had resigned their commissions in the British Army only weeks earlier, including overall commander, General John Bagot Glubb, entered the corpus separatum region encompassing Jerusalem and its environs (in response to the Haganah's Operation Kilshon) and moved into areas designated as part of the Arab state by the UN partition plan. The war, which was to last until 1949, would see Israel expand to encompass about 78% of the territory of the former British Mandate, with Transjordan seizing and subsequently annexing the West Bank and the Kingdom of Egypt seizing the Gaza Strip. With the end of the Mandate, the remaining British troops in Israel were concentrated in an enclave in the Haifa port area, through which they were being withdrawn, and at RAF Ramat David, which was maintained to cover the withdrawal. The British handed over RAF Ramat David to the Israelis on 26 May and on 30 June, the last British troops were evacuated from Haifa. The British flag was lowered from the administrative building of the Port of Haifa and the Israeli flag was raised in its place, and the Haifa port area was formally handed over to the Israeli authorities in a ceremony. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine |
Kharijites | The accession of Mu'awiya, the original enemy of the Kharijites, to the caliphate in August 661 provided the new impetus for Kharijite rebellion. Those Kharijites at Nahrawan who had been unwilling to fight Ali and had left the battlefield, rebelled against Mu'awiya. Under the leadership of Farwa ibn Nawfal al-Ashja'i of the Banu Murra, some 500 of them attacked Mu'awiya's camp at Nukhayla (a place outside Kufa) where he was taking the Kufans' oath of allegiance. In the ensuing battle, the Kharijites repelled the initial sortie by Mu'awiya's troops, but were eventually defeated and most of them killed. Seven more Kufan Kharijite uprisings, with rebel numbers in individual revolts varying between 20 and 400, were defeated by the governor al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba. The best known of these revolts was that of al-Mustawrid ibn Ullafa, who was recognized as caliph by the Kufan Kharijites in 663. With about 300 followers, he left Kufa and moved to Behrasir. There, he confronted the deputy governor Simak ibn Ubayd al-Absi and invited him to denounce Uthman and Ali "who had made innovations in the religion and denied the holy book". Simak refused and al-Mustawrid, instead of engaging him directly, decided to exhaust and fragment Simak's forces by forcing them into pursuit. Moving onto Madhar near Basra, al-Mustawrid was overtaken by a 300-strong advance party of Simak's forces. Although al-Mustawrid was able to withstand this small force, he fled again toward Kufa when the main body of Simak's forces, under the command of Ma'qil ibn Qays, arrived. Eluding Ma'qil's advance guard of 600 men, al-Mustawrid led a surprise attack on Ma'qil's main force, destroying it. The advance guard returned in the meantime and attacked the Kharijites from the rear. Nearly all of them were slain.
Kufan Kharijism died out around 663, and Basra became the center of Kharijite disturbances. Ziyad ibn Abihi and his son Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, who successively became governors of Iraq, dealt harshly with the Kharijites, and five Kharijite revolts, usually involving around 70 men, were suppressed. Notable among these was that of the cousins Qarib ibn Murra al-Azdi and Zuhhaff ibn Zahr al-Tayyi. In 672/673 they rebelled in Basra with a 70-strong band. They are reported to have been involved in the random killing (isti'rad) of people in the streets and mosques of Basra before being cornered in a house, where they were eventually killed and their bodies crucified. Afterward, Ziyad is reported to have severely persecuted their followers. Ibn Ziyad jailed any Kharijite whom he suspected of being dangerous and executed several Kharijite sympathizers who had publicly denounced him. Between their successive reigns, Ziyad and his son are said to have killed 13,000 Kharijites. As a result of these repressive measures, some of the Kharijites abandoned military action, adopting political quietism and concealing their religious beliefs. Of the quietists, the best known was Abu Bilal Mirdas ibn Udayya al-Tamimi. One of the earliest Kharijites who had seceded at Siffin, he was held in the highest esteem by the Basran quietists. Provoked by the torture and murder of a Kharijite woman by Ibn Ziyad, Abu Bilal abandoned Basra and revolted in 680/681 with 40 men. Shortly after defeating a 2,000-strong Basran force in Ahwaz, he fell to a larger army of 3,000 or 4,000 in Fars in southern Persia. His fate is said to have aroused the quietists and contributed to the increased Kharijite militancy in the subsequent period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharijites |
Sayfo | Under Reshid's leadership, a systematic anti-Christian extermination was conducted in Diyarbekir province which included Syriacs and the province's few Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholics. Reshid knew that his decision to extend the persecution to all Christians in Diyarbekir was against the central government's wishes, and he concealed relevant information from his communications. Unlike the government, Reshid and his Mardin deputy Bedri Bey classified all Aramaic-speaking Christians as Armenians: enemies of the CUP who must be eliminated. Reshid planned to replace Diyarbekir's Christians with selected, approved Muslim settlers to counterbalance the potentially-rebellious Kurds; in practice, however, the areas were resettled by Kurds and the genocide consolidated the province's Kurdish presence. Historian Uğur Ümit Üngör says that in Diyarbekir, "most instances of massacre in which the militia engaged were directly ordered by" Reshid and "all Christian communities of Diyarbekir were equally hit by the genocide, although the Armenians were often particularly singled out for immediate destruction". The priest Jacques Rhétoré estimated that the Syriac Orthodox in Diyarbekir province lost 72 percent of their population, compared to 92 percent of Armenian Catholics and 97 percent of Armenian Apostolic Church adherents.
German diplomats noticed that the Ottoman deportations were targeting groups other than Armenians, leading to a complaint from the German government. Austria-Hungary and the Holy See also protested the violence against non-Armenians. Talaat Pasha telegraphed Reshid on 12 July 1915 that "measures adopted against the Armenians are absolutely not to be extended to other Christians ... you are ordered to put an immediate end to these acts". No action was taken against Reshid for exterminating Syriac Christians or assassinating Ottoman officials who disagreed with the massacres, however, and in 1916 he was appointed governor of Ankara. Talaat's telegram may have been sent in response to German and Austrian opposition to the massacres, with no expectation of implementation. The perpetrators began separating Armenians and Syriacs in early July, only killing the former; however, the killing of Syriacs resumed in August and September. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayfo |
Kaaba | Inside the Kaaba, there were nine engraved marble stones, all written in the Thuluth script, except for one which is written in prominent Kufic script. In the eastern wall between the door and the Gate of Repentance another document was added by the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques at the time Fahd of Saudi Arabia, regarding his expansion of the mosque, thus bringing the number of documents to ten, all of which are inscribed on white marble.
Islamic sanctities received great attention from the Circassian sultans during the period in which they ruled the Islamic world (1382–1517 CE), with the Kaaba receiving significant attention. Of the ten marble slabs chronicling the architectural contributions of various rulers to Al-Masjid al-Haram, two of the slabs pertain to Circassian sultans.
One of these two records the achievements of one of the most notable circassians, Sultan Barsbay. The document, dated to 1423 (CE), attests to a wide reconstruction and restoration process in the mosque by the Sultan.
The inscription on the slab reads: بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ربنا تقبل منا انك انت السميع العليم تقرب الى الله تعالى بتجديد رخام هذا البيت المعظم المشرف العبد الفقير الى الله تعالى السلطان الملك الاشرف ابو النصر برسباي خادم الحرمين الشريفين بلغه الله اماله و زين بالصالحات اعماله بتاريخ سنة ست و عشرين و ثمان مئه
This translates to: “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Our Lord, accept from us that you are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Draw nearer to God Almighty by renewing the marble of this noble and honorable house. The poor servant of God Almighty, the honorable Sultan King Abu al-Nasr Barsbay, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. May God reach his hopes and adorn his deeds with good deeds. The year eight hundred and twenty-six AH"
The other of the two circassian slabs is dedicated to Barsbays son, Sultan Qaitbay, known for his great architectural achievements throughout the Islamic world. Dated to 1479 (CE), the document attests to a wide reconstruction and restoration process undertaken by Sultan Sultan Qaitbay for Al-Masjid Al-Haram.
The inscription reads:بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم ربنا تقبل منا انك انت السميع العليم أمر بتجيد ترخيم داخل البيت مولانا السلطان الأشرف أبو النصر قايتباي خلد الله ملكه يارب العالمين بتاريخ مستهل رجب الفرد عام أربع و ثمانين و ثمانمائة من الهجرة
Which translates to: “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Our Lord, accept from us that You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. He commanded the perfection of melodious chanting inside the house. Our Lord, the honorable and victorious Sultan Qaytbay, may God immortalize his kingdom, Lord of the worlds, on the first of the month of Rajab in the year eight hundred and eighty-four AH.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba |
Nabataean Aramaic | Like other Semitic languages, Nabataean Aramaic attests various (basic and derived) verb stems. Based on comparison with other varieties of Aramaic, it is likely that active verbs could occur as G-stems (basic stem), D-stems (intensive stem, characterized by different vowels and gemination of the second radical), or C-stems (causative stem, characterized by different vowels and a prefix). Due to the limitations of the Nabataean alphabet, the G- and D-stem are not distinguished in writing: cf. ʕbd 'he made' (G-stem), qrb 'he approached' (D-stem). The suffix conjugation (see below) of the C-stem is marked by a prefixed h-, as in hqym 'he erected', or ʔ-, as in ʔqymw 'they erected'; the prefix conjugation cannot be distinguished in writing from the G- or D-stem.
Mediopassive stems are derived from the G- and D-stems. These are marked by a prefixed -t-; all the examples Cantineau mentions are prefix conjugation forms (see below), such as ytptḥ 'it will be opened' (tG-stem), ytʔlp 'he will compose for himself' (tD-stem). Unlike in some other kinds of Aramaic, verbs with a sibilant first radical prefix the -t- or infix it without voicing or emphatic assimilation: ytzbn and yztbn 'it will be sold'; these kinds of forms also occur in contemporary texts from the Dead Sea region, however. The late form mqtry (for earlier mtqrʔ) 'called (m.sg.)' shows Arabic-like infixation of -t- after a non-sibilant first radical, although the form cannot have been borrowed from Arabic in its entirety. A purely passive form is marked by a mater lectionis -y- between the second and third radical, as in dkyr 'remembered (be) (m.sg.)'. This is sometimes inflected as an adjective, as in dkyryn 'remembered (m.pl.)' but can also be inflected according to the suffix conjugation, as in ʕbydt 'it (f.) was made'.
Two finite conjugations can be distinguished: the suffix conjugation, which exclusively marks its subject agreement through suffixation, and the prefix conjugation, which uses both suffixes and prefixes. Attested suffix conjugation endings include -t (third person feminine singular and second person masculine singular) and -w (third person plural for both genders); the third person masculine singular is unmarked. Examples include ʕbd 'he made', ʕbdt 'she made', ʕbdw 'they made', and qrʔt 'you (m.sg.) called'. The subject markers for the third person prefix conjugation are y- (third person masculine singular), t- (third person feminine singular), and y-...-wn (third person (masculine?) plural), as in yʕbd 'he will make', tʕbd 'she will make', and yktbwn 'they will write'. Besides these finite conjugations, Nabataean Aramaic verbs form an infinitive. The G-stem infinitive is formed with a prefixed m-, as in mktb 'to write'. The G-stem active participle does not have any special affixes and has a stem like rḥm 'loving (m.sg.)'. As noted above, the G-stem passive participle is formed like dkyr 'remembered (m.sg.)'. In late graffiti, the form mdk(w)r 'remembered (m.sg.)' also occurs, a pattern which is borrowed from Arabic. The participles (both active and passive) of the derived stems are formed by prefixing an m-, but examples are scarce. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabataean_Aramaic |
Medicine in the medieval Islamic world | Browne, Edward G. (2002). Islamic Medicine. Goodword Books. ISBN 978-81-87570-19-6.
Dols, Michael W. (1984). Medieval Islamic Medicine: Ibn Ridwan's Treatise 'On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt'. Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-04836-2.
Leclerc, Lucien (1876). Histoire de la médecine arabe. Exposé complet des traductions du grec. Les sciences en orient. Leur transmission à l'Occident par les traductions latines (in French). Paris: Ernest Leroux. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
Lindberg, D.C., and M. H. Shank, eds. The Cambridge History of Science. Volume 2: Medieval Science (Cambridge UP, 2013), chapter 5 covers medicine in Islam.
Morelon, Régis; Rashed, Roshdi (1996). Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science. Vol. 3. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-12410-2.
Pormann, Peter E.; Savage-Smith, Emilie (2007). Medieval Islamic Medicine. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2066-1.
Porter, Roy (2001). The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00252-3.
Saunders, John J. (1978). A History of Medieval Islam. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-05914-5.
Sezgin, Fuat (1970). Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums Bd. III: Medizin – Pharmazie – Zoologie – Tierheilkunde [History of the Arabic literature Vol. III: Medicine – Pharmacology – Veterinary Medicine] (in German). Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Ullmann, Manfred (1978). Islamic Medicine. Islamic Surveys. Vol. 11. Edinburgh Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-85224-325-1.
Leung, A. K. (2003). "Contagion: Perspectives from pre-modern societies". Medical History. 47 (4): 545–546. doi:10.1017/S0025727300057574. PMC 1044687.
Fabrizio Speziale, « A 14th Century Revision of the Avicennian and Ayurvedic Humoral Pathology: The Hybrid Model by Šihāb al-Dīn Nāgawrī », Oriens, 42, 3–4, 2014, pp. 514–532.
Fabrizio Speziale, 2018, Culture persane et médecine ayurvédique an Asie du Sud, Leiden – Boston, E.J. Brill, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, ISBN 978-90-04-35276-6.
Fabrizio Speziale, 2018, « Ḫilṭ or Doṣa? The Interpretation of Ayurvedic Theory of Tridoṣa in Early-Modern Persian Texts », in L’espace du sens. Approches de la philologie indienne/The Space of Meaning. Approaches to Indian Philology, Silvia D'Intino – Sheldon Pollock, eds., Collège de France, Paris, 2018, pp. 431–448.
Fabrizio Speziale, « Persian Treatises on Āyurveda: The Shaping of a Genre », Journal of South Asian Intellectual History, 3, 2020, pp. 89–122. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world |
Reza Shah | The Shah's reign is sometimes divided into periods. All the efforts of Reza Shah's reign were either completed or conceived in the 1925–1938 period. Abdolhossein Teymourtash assisted by Farman Farma, Ali-Akbar Davar and a large number of modern educated Iranians, proved adept at masterminding the implementation of many reforms demanded since the failed constitutional revolution of 1905–1911. The preservation and promotion of the country's historic heritage, the provision of public education, construction of a national railway, abolition of capitulation agreements, and the establishment of a national bank had all been advocated by intellectuals since the tumult of the constitutional revolution.
The later years of his reign were dedicated to institutionalizing the educational system of Iran and also to the industrialization of the country. He knew that the system of the constitutional monarchy in Iran after him had to stand on a solid basis of the collective participation of all Iranians, and that it was indispensable to create educational centers all over Iran.
Reza Shah attempted to forge a regional alliance with Iran's Middle Eastern neighbors, particularly Turkey. The death of Ataturk in 1938, followed by the start of World War II shortly thereafter, prevented these projects from being realized.
The parliament assented to his decrees, the free press was suppressed, and the swift incarceration of political leaders like Mossadegh, the murder of others such as Teymourtash, Sardar Asad, Firouz, Modarres, Arbab Keikhosro and the suicide of Davar, ensured that any progress towards democratization was stillborn and organized opposition to the Shah, impossible. Reza Shah treated the urban middle class, the managers, and technocrats with an iron fist; as a result his state-owned industries remained underproductive and inefficient. The bureaucracy fell apart, since officials preferred sycophancy, when anyone could be whisked away to prison for even the whiff of disobeying his whims. He confiscated land from the Qajars and from his rivals and into his own estates. The corruption continued under his rule and even became institutionalized. Progress toward modernization was spotty and isolated as it could only take place with Shah's approval. Eventually the Shah became totally dependent on the military and secret police to retain power; in return, these state organs regularly received funding up to 50 percent of available public revenue to ensure their loyalty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Shah |
Jordan | Life expectancy in Jordan was around 74.8 years in 2017. The leading cause of death is cardiovascular diseases, followed by cancer. Childhood immunization rates have increased steadily over the past 15 years; by 2002 immunisations and vaccines reached more than 95% of children under five. In 1950, water and sanitation was available to only 10% of the population; in 2015, it reached 98% of Jordanians.
Jordan prides itself on its health services, some of the best in the region. Qualified medics, a favourable investment climate and Jordan's stability has contributed to the success of this sector. The country's health care system is divided between public and private institutions. On 1 June 2007, Jordan Hospital (as the biggest private hospital) was the first general specialty hospital to gain the international accreditation JCAHO. The King Hussein Cancer Center is a leading cancer treatment centre. 66% of Jordanians have medical insurance.
The Jordanian educational system comprises 2 years of pre-school education, 10 years of compulsory basic education, and two years of secondary academic or vocational education, after which the students sit for the General Certificate of Secondary Education Exam (Tawjihi) exams. Scholars may attend either private or public schools. According to the UNESCO, the literacy rate in 2015 was 98.01% and is considered to be the highest in the Middle East and the Arab world, and one of the highest in the world. UNESCO ranked Jordan's educational system 18th out of 94 nations for providing gender equality in education. Jordan has the highest number of researchers in research and development per million people among all the 57 countries that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In Jordan, there are 8060 researchers per million people, while the world average is 2532 per million. Primary education is free in Jordan.
Jordan has 10 public universities, 19 private universities and 54 community colleges, of which 14 are public, 24 private and others affiliated with the Jordanian Armed Forces, the Civil Defense Department, the Ministry of Health and UNRWA. There are over 200,000 Jordanian students enrolled in universities each year. An additional 20,000 Jordanians pursue higher education abroad primarily in the United States and Europe. According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the top-ranking universities in the country are the University of Jordan (UJ) (1,220th worldwide), Jordan University of Science & Technology (JUST) (1,729th) and Hashemite University (2,176th). UJ and JUST occupy 8th and 10th between Arab universities. Jordan has 2,000 researchers per million people. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan |
Golden Horde | At his death in 1227, Genghis Khan divided the Mongol Empire amongst his four sons as appanages, but the Empire remained united under the supreme khan. Jochi was the eldest, but he died six months before Genghis. The westernmost lands occupied by the Mongols, which included what is today southern Russia and Kazakhstan, were given to Jochi's eldest sons, Batu Khan, who eventually became ruler of the Blue Horde, and Orda Khan, who became the leader of the White Horde. In 1235, Batu with the great general Subutai began an invasion westwards, first conquering the Bashkirs and then moving on to Volga Bulgaria in 1236. From there he conquered some of the southern steppes of present-day Ukraine in 1237, forcing many of the local Cumans to retreat westward. The Mongol campaign against the Kypchaks and Cumans had already started under Jochi and Subutai in 1216–1218 when the Merkits took shelter among them. By 1239 a large portion of Cumans were driven out of the Crimean peninsula, and it became one of the appanages of the Mongol Empire. The remnants of the Crimean Cumans survived in the Crimean mountains, and they would, in time, mix with other groups in the Crimea (including Greeks, Goths, and Mongols) to form the Crimean Tatar population. Moving north, Batu began the Mongol invasion of Rus' and spent three years subjugating the principalities, whilst his cousins Möngke, Kadan, and Güyük moved southwards into Alania.
Using the migration of the Cumans as their casus belli, the Mongols continued west, raiding Poland and Hungary, which culminated in Mongol victories at the battles of Legnica and Mohi. In 1241, however, Ögedei Khan died in the Mongolian homeland. Batu turned back from his siege of Vienna but did not return to Mongolia, rather opting to stay at the Volga River. His brother Orda returned to take part in the succession. The Mongol armies would never again travel so far west. In 1242, after retreating through Hungary, destroying Pest in the process, and subjugating Bulgaria, Batu established his capital at Sarai, commanding the lower stretch of the Volga River, on the site of the Khazar capital of Atil. Shortly before that, the younger brother of Batu and Orda, Shiban, was given his own enormous ulus east of the Ural Mountains along the Ob and Irtysh Rivers.
While the Mongolian language was undoubtedly in general use at the court of Batu, few Mongol texts written in the territory of the Golden Horde have survived, perhaps because of the prevalent general illiteracy. According to Grigor'ev, yarliq, or decrees of the Khans, were written in Mongol, then translated into the Cuman language. The existence of Arabic-Mongol and Persian-Mongol dictionaries dating from the middle of the 14th century and prepared for the use of the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate suggests that there was a practical need for such works in the chancelleries handling correspondence with the Golden Horde. It is thus reasonable to conclude that letters received by the Mamluks – if not also written by them – must have been in Mongol. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde |
Refugees of the Syrian civil war | The topic of US involvement in alleviating the Syrian refugee crisis continues to be a highly contentious issue among legislators, stakeholders, and activists. As instability in the region continues to rise, and the number of people seeking refuge continues to increase, the topic of whether or not to admit Syrian refugees into the United States continues to have a pervasive hold on American affairs, both foreign and domestic. However, the presence of refugees in a country can present opportunities for the state to develop capacity in more marginalized areas.
The issue of whether or not to admit Syrian refugees into the US has long been classified as a partisan issue, and the poll results affirm this position. In 2016, 56% of Democrats supported admitting Syrian refugees into the US, compared with 18% of Republicans and 32% of independents. Since the Syrian Refugee Crisis, the United States citizens have been formulating opinions on how to deal with the refugee crisis.
In a CNN/ORC poll conducted in November 2015 when responding to the question "Do you favor or oppose allowing refugees from Syria to seek asylum in the United States? ... Do you favor/oppose that strongly or just somewhat?" 16% of people were strongly in favor, 22% somewhat in favor, 18% somewhat opposed, 43% strongly opposed, and 1% were unsure. Another poll was conducted again in Jan–Feb 2017, asking the same question. This time, 25% of people were strongly in favor, 29% somewhat in favor, 18% somewhat opposed, 27% strongly opposed, and 2% were unsure (margin of error of about 3). These polls show a shift towards more favourable opinions towards letting in Syrian refugees over this period.
In Duke University Law School's Academic Journal, Suman Momin wrote an article entitled A Human Rights Based Approach to Refugees: A Look at the Syrian Refugee Crisis and Responses from Germany and the United States. Momin lays out the most common moral and intrinsic arguments that affect citizens' opinions on refugee issues such as the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Momin introduces the "Good Samaritan" argument, the protection argument, and the political responsibility argument. The Good Samaritan argument states that people are in favor of helping non-citizens who are refugees as long as they believe that by helping, their own country will not be sacrificing anything. The protection argument stems from the idea that humans care about the rights and lives of others. This argument means that people pay attention to emotional debates that use photos of refugees or play at emotional connections, making people want to protect or save refugees. Finally, the political responsibility argument states that people are more willing to help when they think providing aid or letting in refugees with advance their own country politically. Where Americans stand on these moral rationales is what influences their opinion of foreign policy issues towards Syrian refugees.
In a Quinnipiac University Poll from 16 February through 21 February 2016, responding to the question "Do you support or oppose accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S.?", 74% of Democrats and 43% of Independents were in support of Syrian refugees coming to the US while only 13% of Republicans were in support. 82% of Republicans were opposed to Syrian refugees coming to the US, 51% of Independents and 22% of Democrats. 4% to 5% of people in each party had no answer. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9. This poll indicates that Democrats are largely in favor of Syrian refugees entering the US while Republicans are largely opposed and considering the margin of error, Independents are completely split on the issue.
In another poll taken by Gallup on 30 and 31 January 2017 Gallup asked people "Thinking now about some of the specific actions Donald Trump has taken since he has been in office, would you say you approve or disapprove of indefinitely suspending the United States' Syrian refugee program" 32% of people approved Trump's actions suspending the Syrian refugee program 62% of people disapproved and 6% of people were unsure (margin of error of plus or minus 4). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_civil_war |
Spanish architecture | The kingdom of Asturias arose in 718, when the Astur tribes, rallied in assembly, decided to appoint Pelayo as their leader. Pelayo joined the local tribes and the refuged Visigoths under his command, with the intention of progressively restoring Gothic Order.
Asturian Pre-Romanesque is a singular feature in all Spain, which, while combining elements from other styles as Visigothic and local traditions, created and developed its own personality and characteristics, reaching a considerable level of refinement, not only as regards construction, but also in terms of aesthetics.
As regards its evolution, from its appearance, Asturian Pre-Romanesque followed a "stylistic sequence closely associated with the kingdom's political evolution, its stages clearly outlined". It was mainly a court architecture, and five stages are distinguished: a first period (737–791) from the reign of the king Fáfila to Vermudo I, a second stage comprises the reign of Alfonso II (791–842), entering a stage of stylistic definition. These two first stages receive the name of 'Pre-Ramirense'. The most important example is the church San Julián de los Prados in Oviedo, with an interesting volume system and a complex iconographic fresco program, related narrowly to the Roman mural paintings. Lattices and trifoliate windows in the apse appear for the first time at this stage. The Holy Chamber of the Cathedral of Oviedo, San Pedro de Nora and Santa María de Bendones also belong to it.
The third period comprises the reigns of Ramiro I (842–850) and Ordoño I (850–866). It is called 'Ramirense' and is considered the zenith of the style, due to the work of an unknown architect who brought new structural and ornamental achievements like the barrel vault, and the consistent use of transverse arches and buttresses, which made the style rather close to the structural achievements of the Romanesque two centuries later. Some writers have pointed to an unexplained Syrian influence of the rich ornamentation. In that period, most of the masterpieces of the style flourished: the palace pavilions of Naranco Mountain (Santa Maria del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo), and the church of Santa Cristina de Lena were built in that period.
The fourth period belongs to the reign of Alfonso III (866–910), where a strong Mozarabic influence arrived to Asturian architecture, and the use of the horseshoe arch expanded. A fifth and last period, which coincides with the transfer of the court to León, the disappearance of the kingdom of Asturias, and simultaneously, of Asturian Pre-Romanesque. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_architecture |
History of slavery | African states played a key role in the trade of slaves, and slavery was a common practice among Sub Saharan Africans even before the involvement of the Arabs, Berbers and Europeans. There were three types: those who were enslaved through conquest, instead of unpaid debts, or those whose parents gave them as property to tribal chiefs. Chieftains would barter their slaves to Arab, Berber, Ottoman or European buyers for rum, spices, cloth or other goods. Selling captives or prisoners was a common practice among Africans, Turks, Berbers and Arabs during that era. However, as the Atlantic trade of slaves increased its demand, local systems which primarily serviced indentured servitude expanded. European trading of slaves, as a result, was the most pivotal change in the social, economic, cultural, spiritual, religious, political dynamics of the concept of trading in slaves. It ultimately undermined local economies and political stability as villages' vital labour forces were shipped overseas as slave raids and civil wars became commonplace. Crimes which were previously punishable by some other means became punishable by enslavement.
Slavery already existed in Kingdom of Kongo prior to the arrival of the Portuguese. Because it had been established within his kingdom, Afonso I of Kongo believed that the slave trade should be subject to Kongo law. When he suspected the Portuguese of receiving illegally slaves to sell, he wrote letters to the King João III of Portugal in 1526 imploring him to put a stop to the practice.
The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise may have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family's status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa's west coast, particularly the French. Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the trade of slaves with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast".
In the 1840s, King Gezo of Dahomey said:
"The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth...the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery."
In 1807 the United Kingdom made the international trade of slaves illegal with the Slave Trade Act. The Royal Navy was deployed to prevent slavers from the United States, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, West Africa and Arabia. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) allegedly became dissatisfied of the British intervention in stopping the trade of slaves:
"We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself."
Joseph Miller states that African buyers would prefer males, but in reality, women and children would be more easily captured as men fled. Those captured would be sold for various reasons such as food, debts, or servitude. Once captured, the journey to the coast killed many and weakened others. Disease engulfed many, and insufficient food damaged those who made it to the coasts. Scurvy was common, and was often referred to as mal de Luanda ("Luanda sickness," after the port in Angola). The assumption for those who died on the journey died from malnutrition. As food was limited, water may have been just as bad. Dysentery was widespread and poor sanitary conditions at ports did not help. Since supplies were poor, slaves were not equipped with the best clothing, meaning they were even more exposed to diseases.
On top of the fear of disease, people were afraid of why they were being captured. The popular assumption was that Europeans were cannibals. Stories and rumours spread that whites captured Africans to eat them. Olaudah Equiano accounts his experience about the sorrow slaves encountered at the ports. He talks about his first moment on a slave ship and asked if he was going to be eaten. Yet, the worst for slaves has only begun, and the journey on the water proved to be more harrowing. For every 100 Africans captured, only 64 would reach the coast, and only about 50 would reach the New World.
Others believe that slavers had a vested interest in capturing rather than killing, and in keeping their captives alive; and that this coupled with the disproportionate removal of males and the introduction of new crops from the Americas (cassava, maize) would have limited general population decline to particular regions of western Africa around 1760–1810, and in Mozambique and neighbouring areas half a century later. There has also been speculation that within Africa, females were most often captured as brides, with their male protectors being a "bycatch" who would have been killed if there had not been an export market for them.
British explorer Mungo Park encountered a group of slaves when traveling through Mandinka country:
They were all very inquisitive, but they viewed me at first with looks of horror, and repeatedly asked if my countrymen were cannibals. They were very desirous to know what became of the slaves after they had crossed the salt water. I told them that they were employed in cultivation the land; but they would not believe me ... A deeply-rooted idea that the whites purchase negroes for the purpose of devouring them, or of selling them to others that they may be devoured hereafter, naturally makes the slaves contemplate a journey towards the coast with great terror, insomuch that the slatees are forced to keep them constantly in irons, and watch them very closely, to prevent their escape.
During the period from the late 19th century and early 20th century, demand for the labour-intensive harvesting of rubber drove frontier expansion and forced labour. The personal monarchy of Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo Free State saw mass killings and slavery to extract rubber. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery |
Arabization | Despite being a nation of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman had been home to several native languages other than Arabic, of which Kumzari which is the only native Indo-European language in the Arabian Peninsula has been classified as highly endangered by the UNESCO and at risk of dying out in 50 years. Before the takeover of Qaboos as sultan, Arabic was only ever spoken by the inhabitants outside the village of Kumzar, in mosques or with strangers, however since the introduction of Arabic-only schools in 1984, Arabic is hence now spoken at both school and village with it being mandatory in school and as tv and radio are also in Arabic meaning virtually all media the people of Kumzar are exposed to is in Arabic. There has also been an internalization of outsiders' negative attitudes toward the Kumzari language to the point where some Kumzari families have begun to speak Arabic to their children at home.
The Modern South Arabian languages have also come under threat in Oman. Hobyot is considered a critically endangered language. The actual number of speakers is unknown, but it is estimated to be only a few hundred. Most of those who maintain the language are elderly, which adds to the likelihood that language extinction is near. Ethnologue categorizes it as a moribund language (EGIDS 8a). The only fluent speakers that are left are older than the child-bearing age, which ultimately makes integration of the language into subsequent generations highly improbable. Mechanisms of transmission would have to be created from outside the community in order to preserve it.
The Harsusi language is also critically endangered, as most Harsusi children now attend Arabic-language schools and are literate in Arabic, Harsusi is spoken less in the home, meaning that it is not being passed down to future generations. With the discovery of oil in the area and the reintroduction of the Arabian Oryx in the area which has provided job opportunities for Harsusi men, this has led to them using primarily Arabic or Mehri when communicating with their co-workers. These factors have also caused many Harasis to speak Arabic and Mehri in addition to or in place of Harsusi. These pressures led one researcher to conclude in 1981 that "within a few generations Harsusi will be replaced by Arabic, more specifically by the Omani Arabic standard dialect" though this has not yet materialized. UNESCO has categorised Harsusi as a language that is "definitely endangered".
The Shehri language has also come under threat in recent years, prior to the Arabization of Oman, Shehri was once spoken from Yemen's Hadhramaut region to Ras Al Hadd in Eastern Oman. Until around as little as forty years ago, Shehri was spoken by all of the inhabitants of Dhofar as the common language, including by the native Arabic speakers in Salalah who spoke it fluently. The remainder of Dhofar's inhabitants all spoke Shehri as their mother tongue. Today however Arabic has taken over as the form of mutual communication in Dhofar and is now exclusively spoken by those to whom it is their native tongue. A number of the older generation of Shehri language speakers, particularly those who live in the mountains, don't even speak Arabic and it was only around fifty years ago that most of Dhofar's Shehri speaking population began to learn it. The fact that Arabic has a written form unlike Shehri has also greatly contributed to its decline.
Another language, Bathari is the most at risk of dying out with its numbers (as of 2019) at currently anywhere from 12 to 17 fluent elderly speakers whereas there are some middle aged speakers but they mix their ancestral tongue with Arabic instead. The tribe seems to be dying out with the language also under threat from modern education solely in Arabic. The Bathari language is nearly extinct. Estimates are that the number of remaining speakers are under 100. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization |
Khor Rori | Inscriptions at Khor Rori report that the town of Sumhuram (Hadramautic: s1mhrm), was founded on royal initiative and settled by Hadhrami emigrants. The Dhofar region was the main source of frankincense in the ancient period, and it seems likely that the foundation of the settlement by the Hadhramaut was in part motivated by wish to control the production of this valuable commodity.
Khor Rori has been tentatively identified as the location of Moscha Limen (Ancient Greek: Μόσχα λιμήν, probably meaning "the harbour of young shoots (μόσχος)" and referring to the possible mangrove vegetation in the past), or else "the harbour of musk, perfume" The name appeared in the anonymous Periplus of the Erythraean Sea of the 1st century CE, and in Ptolemy's Geographia in the next century. It has also been identified with Abissa polis or Abyssapolis (Ancient Greek: Ἄβισσα πόλις) from Ptolemy; this name has first been connected with the abyss besides the waterfall of Wādī Darbāt, but may be related to the Abyssinian people. The existence of an ancient port city in this area has been expected by 19th century western geographers based on the classical and Arabic sources. In the 1890s the location was pointed out by Eduard Glaser, and English explorer James Theodore Bent, who visited it on January 1895 with his wife Mabel, published a description of it, and reiterated the double identification.
In 1908, J.G. Lorimer recorded Khor Rori in his Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, noting its location as the eastern extremity of Dhofar proper. He wrote:
A remarkable lake or inlet of the sea running a mile or more inland; it is the estuary of Wadi Dirbat from Jabal Samhan.
The inlet is divided from the sea by a sand bar over which the water flows at high tide. A peninsula, once fortified, adjoins the east side of the entrance. Remains of ancient buildings surround the lake. There is a fortified rock at the entrance to the inlet, which is called Khatiyah. This harbour is the ancient Moscha, or Abyssapolis.
The site has been excavated by the American Foundation for the Study of Man (AFSM) in the early 1950s and by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) since 1994. The excavations have uncovered the ground plan of the settlement and has attested maritime contacts with the Ḥaḑramite homeland, India and the Mediterranean.
It was inscribed in 2000, along with other sites along the Incense Route in Oman, as part of the World Heritage Site "Land of Frankincense". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khor_Rori |
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi | After working at Furat and al-Manar, Al-Kawakibi started his own literary journal called the al-Sahba. The journal vehemently criticized the despots and dictators of his time, and alluded to the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire. He especially focused his criticism on the new Vali of Aleppo, Jamil Pasha. Due to Al-Kawakibi's political outspokenness, the journal was shut down by the local Ottoman Government after only 15 issues.
After his work as editor, Al-Kawakibi entered politics more directly, and worked for various positions in the Ottoman civil service in Aleppo. Despite his opposition to the Ottoman Empire, Al-Kawakibi wanted to serve Arabs. During this point in his career, he became an honorary member of the board of lawyer examinations. Al-Kawakibi, along with other Aleppans, complained about the Vali to the central government in Istanbul. These criticisms fell on deaf ears until Istanbul sent a representative to Aleppo to investigate, and immediately threw Kawakibi and his followers into prison for false complaints. Once released from prison, Al-Kawakibi's popularity rose and he became the mayor of Aleppo in 1892.
Later on Al-Kawakibi went to Istanbul to study the Ottoman Empire's despotism and problematic leadership more extensively. With his newfound knowledge, he returned to Aleppo and began working for the Ottoman government again. Because of his opinions, he was subject to harassment and intimidated on a regular basis. He decided to publish his book Umm al-Qura (The Mother of Cities:Mecca) in Egypt, rather than in Syria, and finally left his home country in 1899, moving to Egypt where he was welcomed by other Islamic intellectuals residing there.
Al-Kawakibi was influenced by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani as well his disciple Muhammad Abduh. Al-Afghani preached Pan-Islamic identity – with this as his basis, Al-Kawakibi went one step further, incorporating Al-Afghani's theories into Pan-Islamic Arabic solidarity. Another contemporary of Al-Kawakibi was the Islamic scholar and advocate for Arab independence, Sayyid Rashid Rida who was based in Egypt at the same time. Rida and Al-Kawakibi discussed ideas of Pan-Arabism as well as Quranic interpretations. Al-Kawakibi believed that Arabs should be representatives of Islam, not the Ottomans. Rida believed that blind-following(taqlid) was the reason for downfall of Muslims. They both advocated the revival of independent Islamic thinking(ijtihad). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahman_al-Kawakibi |
Halabja massacre | The first images after the attack were taken by Iranian journalists who later spread the pictures in Iranian newspapers. Footage taken by a British ITN camera crew, airlifted by the Iranians, was also shown worldwide via news programmes. Some of those first pictures were taken by Iranian photographer Kaveh Golestan, who described the scene to Guy Dinmore of the Financial Times. He was about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) outside Halabja with a military helicopter when the Iraqi MiG-23 fighter-bombers flew in. He said "it was not as big as a nuclear mushroom cloud, but several smaller ones: thick smoke." Golestan was shocked by the scenes on his arrival in the town, though he had seen gas attacks before at the front lines:
It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl's mouth and she died in my arms.
The Iraqi government did not publicly comment on the use of chemical weapons at Halabja until 23 March, and early statements by Iraqi officials on the matter were inconsistent. Although Iraq ultimately denied responsibility for the attack and blamed it on Iran, its initial silence, as well as the fact that Halabja was never a major part of Iraq's wartime propaganda campaign against Iran, raises questions about the sincerity of this deflection.
International response at the time was muted. The United States (U.S.) government and its intelligence agencies suggested that Kurdish civilians had not been deliberately targeted, and attempted to place responsibility for the attack on Iran. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency analyst Stephen C. Pelletiere claimed at the time that Iran was responsible for the gassing, an allegation which Pelletiere repeated in a 2003 op-ed in The New York Times. However, these claims were subsequently discredited. A briefing paper produced by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office about how the British government should respond to the massacre, and whether or not economic sanctions should be imposed, came to the following conclusion: "We believe it better to maintain a dialogue with others if we want to influence their actions. Punitive measures such as unilateral sanctions would not be effective in changing Iraq's behaviour over chemical weapons, and would damage British interests to no avail." According to Tony Benn, the issue was raised in Parliament, but he was told that "Saddam was an ally". Joost Hiltermann states that Iraq took the U.S. "disinformation" about Halabja as "another green light ... to gather up and methodically kill tens of thousands of Kurds" over the course of the ensuing Anfal campaign, which continued until September 1988. In Hiltermann's analysis, the Anfal campaign "surely was not a US policy objective; nevertheless, it resulted directly from failing to call the Iraqis to a halt [after Halabja]."
In response to further Iraqi chemical attacks on Kurdish civilians after the August 1988 ceasefire with Iran, U.S. senators Claiborne Pell and Jesse Helms called for comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq, including an oil embargo and severe limitations on the export of dual-use technology. Although the ensuing legislation passed in the U.S. Senate, it faced strong opposition within the House of Representatives and did not become law. In a rare rebuke, United States Secretary of State George Shultz condemned Iraq's "unjustified and abhorrent" attacks, which Shultz's assistant Charles E. Redman characterized as "unacceptable to the civilized world." Even after these pronouncements, however, the State Department advised against sanctions.
Iraqi government documents dating from 16 March 1988 to several weeks later refer to "a firm escalation of military might and cruelty [in Halabja]," "the bombing by our planes and our artillery on the area of Halabja and Khurmal, [killing] approximately 2,000 enemy forces of the Persians and Iranian agents [the PUK]," the "recent attack on Halabja with special ammunition," and, in one case, explicitly refer to "the Iraqi chemical attack on Halabja." A 20 March 1988 Iraqi memorandum "placed the casualty figures 'as a result of the chemical attack' as 900–1,000 'killed and a large number wounded' near Halabjah and some 2,500 in the city itself. These numbers included 'Khomeini guard, saboteurs, and the rest were civilians.'" An Iraqi pilot explained in 2003 that the attack was motivated, in part, by the Iraqi perception that Kurdish collaboration with invading Iranian soldiers constituted "high treason." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre |
Hakeem Noor-ud-Din | Noor-ud-Deen was constantly involved in religious debates with Christians and Hindus during his stay at Jammu. Once he was confronted by an atheist who asked him that if the concept of God was true, then how in this day and age of reason and knowledge, no one claims to be the recipient of Divine revelations. This was a question to which the Noor-ud-Din did not find an answer immediately. During the same period, he came across a torn page from a book named Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya. The book was written by one Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, who would later claim to be the Promised Messiah and Mahdi. Noor-ud-Din was surprised to see that the writer of the page was a claimant of receiving Wahi (revelation). He purchased the book and read it with great interest. He was so impressed by the book that he decided to meet the writer. Noor-ud- Din later recalled his first meeting with Ghulam Ahmad in his own words.
As I arrived in a nearby place of Qadian, I got excited and was also trembling with anxiety and prayed feverishly....
Noor-ud-Deen later stated:
It was after Asr prayer, I approached Masjid Mubarak. As soon as I saw his face I was overjoyed, and felt happy and grateful to have found the perfect man that I was seeking all my life...
At the end of the first meeting, I offered my hand for Bay'ah. Hazrat Mirza Sahib (Ghulam Ahmad) said, he was not yet Divinely commissioned to accept Bay'ah; then I made Mirza Sahib promise me that I would be the person whose Bay'ah would be accepted first...(Al-Hakam, April 22, 1908)
During his stay in Qadian, Noor-ud-Din became a close friend of Ghulam Ahmad and it is apparent in the writings of both persons that they held each other in highest esteem. Although this relationship soon became that of a Master and disciple and Noor Deen devoted himself as a student to Ahmad. He eventually migrated to Qadian and made his home there soon after he was made to leave his job in Kashmir. He would often accompany Ghulam Ahmad on his travels.
Noor Deen once asked Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to assign him a task by the way of Mujahida (Jihad). Ahmad asked him to write a book answering the Christian allegations against Islam. As a result, Noor-ud-Din wrote two volumes of Faslul Khitab, Muqaddimah Ahlul Kitaab
After completing this, he again asked Ghulam Ahmad the same question. This time, Ahmad assigned him to write a rebuttal to Arya Samaj. Noor-ud-Din wrote Tasdeeq Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakeem_Noor-ud-Din |
Ulama | Starting in the first half of the 19th century, direct contacts began and gradually increased between members of the ulama and modern Western Europe. The Egyptian alim Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (1801–1873) was amongst the first members of the ulama who travelled to Europe. As a religious counsellor to a delegation by the Egyptian khedive Muhammad Ali Pasha he stayed in Paris from 1826 to 1831. His report "The Extraction of Gold or an Overview of Paris" (Taḫlīṣ al-ibrīz fī talḫīṣ Bārīz) (1849) included some outlines of future reforms and potential improvements in his native country. Although al-Tahtawi had gone through the traditional education of an alim, his interest focused on modern French concepts of administration and economy. He only referred to Islam in order to emphasize that Muslims can adopt practical knowledge and insights from Europe. As such, lt-Tahtawi's report reflects the political efforts of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who did not intend to reform al-Azhar university, but aimed at building an independent educational system sponsored by his government.
Hayreddin Pasha (1822/3–1890) was an Ottoman Tunisian alim and statesman who reformed the administration and jurisdiction of the province. He was able to explain his ideas in French (Réformes nécessaires aux États musulmans – Necessary reforms of the Muslim states. Paris, 1868), which he had learned whilst representing his sovereign Ahmad Bey at the court of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1855. In contrast to al-Tahtawi, Hayreddin Pasha used the religious concept of the Muslim collective interest (maṣlaḥa) to make his point, thereby applying the idea of ijtihad to public affairs.
Positions comparable to the Western Islamic ulama were also taken in the Eastern parts of the Islamic world by Syed Ahmad Khan, the pioneering Muslim modernist in South Asia, and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. The latter is regarded as the mentor of Pan-Islamism, but also as one of the founders of the political Islam and of the late 19th and 20th century Salafi movement.
The Egyptian Grand Mufti Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), who was granted the degree of 'Alim by al-Azhar university in 1877, was the first who used the term Islāh in order to denote political and religious reforms. Until 1887 he edited together with al-Afghani the newspaper al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqā ("The firm bond"). The gazette widely spread the pan-islamistic concept of Islam representing a religious bond which was believed to be stronger than nationality or language. From 1876 on, Abduh edited the newspaper al-Ahrām. Since 1898, he also edited, together with Rashid Rida (1865–1935), the newspaper al-Manār ("The Beacon"), in which he further developed his ideas. al-Manār appeared in print for almost 40 years and was read throughout the Islamic world.
ʿAbduh understood Islah as a concept of "reform of mankind" (iṣlāḥ nauʿ al-insān). In his works, he emphasized the special importance of a reform of the traditional madrasa system, which was taken to disadvantage by the parallel establishment of the secular, state-sponsored educational system in Egypt. He strove at reconciling the traditional and modern educational systems, thereby justifying from the point of view of Islam the introduction of modern institutions by the national state. He referred to the Islamic concept of the collective interest or common good of the Muslim community (maṣlaḥa), to which he accorded overarching importance (al-maṣlaḥa shar) in the interest of his fellow Muslims. The concept of islāh gained special relevance for the future, as it strives at understanding and justifying all aspects of modern life from the Islamic doctrine.
After Abduh's death in 1905, Rashīd Ridā continued editing al-Manār on his own. In 1924, he published a collection of writings by some ulama of Najd: Maǧmūʿat al-ḥadiṭ an-naǧdīya. Thus, the teachings of the Yemeni alim Muhammad ash-Shawkani (1759–1839), which had already been discussed since the 1880s, gained greater publicity. Likewise, the writings of the Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) came to attention again. Ibn Taymiyyah's doctrine provided a link between the wahhabiyya and parts of the salafiyya movements. The theological differences between the two movements were altogether too large for a complete union of the two doctrines. However, the opening of the Salafi movement towards Wahhabism helped to reconcile the latter with the Islamic public after king Ibn Saud's invasion of the Hijaz in 1924. The Central Arabian militias (Iḫwān) had occupied and looted the holy towns of Mecca and Medina, thereby destroying monuments which they considered pagan (shirk). Starting with the Pan-Islamic Congress in Mecca in 1926, the pro-Saudi movement developed into one of the most relevant currents of Islamic thought.
In his Egyptian exile, the Syrian alim Abd ar-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854–1902) met al-Afghani, Abduh and Rida. In his books Ṭabāʾiʿ al-istibdād ("The nature of despotism") and Umm al-Qurā ("Mother of villages [i.e., Mecca]", 1899) he accused the Ottoman sultan Abdülhamid II of corrupting the Islamic community. The Ottoman despotism "encroaches on the rights of its citizens, keeps them ignorant to keep them passive, [and] denies their right to take an active part in human life". Therefore, the law must be reformed. By the use of ijtihad, a "modern and unified system of law" must be created, and "proper religious education" must be provided. Because of the central position of the Arabic peoples in the ummah and the Arabic language in the intellectual discourse, but also because "Arabian Islam is ... free from modern corruptions and the bedouin are free from the moral decay and passivity of despotism", the balance of power must shift from the Turks towards the Arabs. The Ottoman dynasty must give up their claim to the caliphate, and a new caliph of Quraysh descent must be elected by representatives of the ummah. His temporal authority would be set up in the Hejaz, whilst he would hold religious authority over the entire Muslim community, "assisted ... by a consultative council nominated by the Muslim rulers".
Al-Kawākibīs idea that the Arabian doctrine represented a more puristic form of the Islam, according to Cleveland and Bunton (2016), prepared the ground for the 20th century Arab nationalism as well as the Islamic renewal movement of the Nahda. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulama |
Ibn al-Nadim | Much known of an-Nadim is deduced from his epithets. 'an-Nadim' (النَّدِيم), 'the Court Companion' and 'al-Warrāq (الْوَرَّاق) 'the copyist of manuscripts'. Probably born in Baghdad ca. 320/932 he died there on Wednesday, 20th of Shaʿban A.H. 385. He was a Persian or perhaps an Arab.
Little is known about Ibn an-Nadīm's life. Some historians say that he was of Persian descent , but this is not certain. However, the choice of the rarely used Persian word pehrest (fehrest/fehres/fahrasat) meaning "The List" as the title for a handbook on Arabic literature is noteworthy in this context.
From age six, he may have attended a madrasa and received comprehensive education in Islamic studies, history, geography, comparative religion, the sciences, grammar, rhetoric and Qurʾanic commentary. Ibrahim al-Abyari, author of Turāth al-Insaniyah says an-Nadim studied with al-Hasan ibn Sawwar, a logician and translator of science books; Yunus al-Qass, translator of classical mathematical texts; and Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Naqit, scholar in Greek science.
An inscription, in an early copy of al-Fihrist, probably by the historian al-Maqrizi, relates that an-Nadim was a pupil of the jurist Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi (d.978/9), the poet Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, and the historian Abu Abdullah al-Marzubani and others. Al-Maqrizi's phrase 'but no one quoted him', would imply an-Nadim himself did not teach. While attending lectures of some of the leading scholars of the tenth century, he served an apprenticeship in his father's profession, the book trade. His father, a bookdealer and owner of a prosperous bookstore, commissioned an-Nadim to buy manuscripts from dealers. an-Nadim, with the other calligrapher scribes employed, would then copy these for the customers. The bookshop, customarily on an upper floor, would have been a popular hangout for intellectuals.
He probably visited the intellectual centers at Basra and Kufa in search of scholarly material. He may have visited Aleppo, a center of literature and culture under the rule of Sayf al-Dawla. In a library in Mosul he found a fragment of a book by Euclid and works of poetry. an-Nadim may have served as 'Court Companion' to Nasir al-Dawla, a Hamdanid ruler of Mosul who promoted learning. His family were highly educated and he, or his ancestor, may have been a 'member of the Round Table of the prince'. The Buyid caliph 'Adud al-Dawla (r. 356–367 H), was the great friend of arts and sciences, loved poets and scholars, gave them salaries, and founded a significant library. More probably service at the court of Mu'izz al-Dawla, and later his son Izz al-Dawlah's, in Baghdad, earned him the title. He mentions meeting someone in Dar al-Rum in 988, about the period of the book's compilation. However, it is probable that, here, 'Dar al-Rum' refers to the Greek Orthodox sector of Baghdad rather than Constantinople.
Others among his wide circle of elites were Ali ibn Harun ibn al-Munajjim (d. 963), of the Banu Munajjim and the Christian philosopher Ibn al-Khammar. He admired Abu Sulayman Sijistani, son of Ali bin Isa the "Good Vizier" of the Banu al-Jarrah, for his knowledge of philosophy, logic and the Greek, Persian and Indian sciences, especially Aristotle. The physician Ibn Abi Usaibia (d. 1273), mentions an-Nadim thirteen times and calls him a writer, or perhaps a government secretary. an-Nadim's kunya 'Abu al-Faraj' indicates he was married with at least one son.
In 987, Ibn an-Nadim began compiling al-Fihrist (The Catalogue), as a useful reference index for customers and traders of books. Over a long period he noted thousands of authors, their biographical data, and works, gathered from his regular visits to private book collectors and libraries across the region - including Mosul and Damascus - and through active participation in the lively literary scene of Baghdad in the period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Nadim |
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2008 Mauritanian coup d'état | Canada – Foreign Affairs Canada released a statement saying, "Canada demands a return to the constitutional order embodied in the elected president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, and calls for the immediate release of all political figures held by the armed forces, including the President and the Prime Minister."
Chile – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a press statement, noting that "the overthrowing -by the military- of the first democratic president elected in the entire history of Mauritania, constitutes a setback to the cause of democracy in the world. Chile longs for the restoration, as soon as possible in Mauritania, of the state of law, the legitimate, constitutional and democratically elected government, and the reestablishment of political and civil freedoms".
France – When asked a question about the coup at a press conference, French minister of foreign affairs Bernard Kouchner replied, "You know how attached we are to Mauritania's stability. It is too soon to describe the situation. Let me remind you nevertheless of France's attachment to preserving the rule of law in all circumstances and its hostility to the seizure of power by force." A statement in French from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier in the day also said, "We are in contact with our embassy in Nouakchott and monitoring the situation with the greatest attention in conjunction with all our partners. Steps are being taken locally to ensure the safety of French nationals. The safety recommendations will be distributed according to the changing situation." France subsequently suspended its development assistance. On August 28, seeking Abdallahi's release and restoration to power, it announced that it was prepared to apply sanctions against individual junta leaders.
Israel – Mauritania is the only other Arab League country besides Egypt and Jordan with which Israel has full diplomatic ties. Israel's former ambassador to Mauritania, Boaz Bismuth, had departed from his position a week before the coup. His successor, Miki Arbel, decided to delay his departure to the country. Yigal Palmor, the former director of the Maghreb department at the foreign ministry and the incoming spokesman, said Israel was "following very closely the developments, and waiting for things to clear up."
Morocco – The government press is calling Abdel Aziz a patriot and an advisor of the king Mohammed VI of Morocco is going to Nouakchott to meet with Abdel Aziz.
Nigeria – President Umaru Yar'Adua stated "Nigeria totally condemns the event that took place today in Mauritania. Nigeria will not recognize any government that did not come to power through constitutional means." He also said, "Our sub-region has made great advances in terms of peace and security and sustenance of democracy at great cost to our peoples that we cannot afford the hand of the clock to be turned back again."
Russia – The Foreign ministry of Russia said, "Moscow acts on the assumption that a change of power by force is unacceptable. As is known, this is also the position of the international community, including the African Union. Such anti-constitutional actions deserve condemnation." The ministry further said that Russia hoped the country's new leadership, which has pledged to hold democratic presidential elections, would honor its pledge and give the Mauritanian people "an opportunity to continue stable development within the bounds of the Constitution and in the interest of all sections of Mauritanian society."
Senegal – President Abdoulaye Wade urged the coup leaders to ensure the personal safety of President Abdallahi, Prime Minister Waghef and their families. A spokesperson for President Wade said that coup leader Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz had telephoned him at 2:40pm local time to inform him of the situation "in his capacity as a close neighbor and African leader." Wade stated that he would inform the African Union about what he discussed with Aziz during the phone call.
South Africa – A spokesperson for the department of foreign affairs said, "South Africa has never countenanced the use of military coups to settle political issues and joins the entire international community in expressing its outright and unequivocal condemnation of such unconstitutional transfer of power," adding, "South Africa like the rest of humanity calls for an immediate return to democracy and the rule of law."
Spain – In a press release from The Directorate-General for Communication of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Office of the Kingdom of Spain, the following was stated, "The Spanish government expresses its condemnation of the coup that took place this morning in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ... [we] also hoped to produce the immediate release of the President and the Prime Minister and the restoration of democratic normalcy."
United Kingdom – Foreign Office minister Dr. Kim Howells said, "The UK is following the situation in Mauritania closely and is concerned by reports of a military coup. We condemn any attempt to seize power by force, and call on all parties to ensure respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and to safeguard the wellbeing of their own citizens and foreign nationals in Mauritania. Britons currently in Mauritania should monitor local press reports and take sensible precautions for their safety."
United States – US State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said of the coup, "We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the Mauritanian military's overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mauritania." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a press conference, "The United States condemns the Mauritanian military's overthrow of the democratically elected Government of Mauritania and welcomes the statements by the African Union and the European Union condemning the coup. We call on the military to release President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghef and to restore the legitimate, constitutional, democratically elected government immediately. The United States looks to all of our international partners to condemn this anti-democratic action." Russell Brooks of the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs said, "Our policy is that this action could have a very serious impact on our aid and cooperation with Mauritania." In compliance with a 2006 act of Congress, the U.S. cut all non-humanitarian aid to the country, totaling about $100 million. Food and other humanitarian aid, totaling about $5 million, was not affected. After the junta formed a government a few weeks later, the US announced on September 2 that it did not recognize this "so-called government" and still recognized Abdallahi and the previous government led by Prime Minister Waghef as the legitimate authorities. It also said that it was considering the imposition of financial and travel sanctions on individuals who took part "in an illegal and non-democratic government". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mauritanian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat |
United Nations Disengagement Observer Force | The initial composition of UNDOF in 1974 was of personnel from Austria, Peru, Canada and Poland, and later contingents have come from Iran, Finland, Slovenia, Japan, Croatia, India and the Philippines. On 9 August 1974, a Canadian Buffalo transport aircraft (Buffalo 461) was on a routine re-supply flight, from Beirut to Damascus for Canadian peacekeepers in the Golan Heights. Flight 51 was carrying five crew members and four passengers: Capt G.G Foster, Capt K.B. Mirau, Capt R.B. Wicks, MWO G. Landry, A/MWO C.B. Korejwo, MCpl R.C Spencer, Cpl M.H.T. Kennington, Cpl M.W. Simpson and Cpl B.K. Stringer. All were members of the Canadian Forces. At 11:50, while on final approach into Damascus, the aircraft was shot down over the outskirts of the Syrian town of Ad Dimas, killing all on board. This remains the largest single-day loss of life in Canada's peace-keeping history.
Between September 1975 and August 1979, an Iranian battalion was assigned to UNDOF, having replaced the original Peruvian contingent. The Iranians were then replaced by a Finnish battalion. The Finns were then replaced by a Polish battalion in December 1993 after the Poles concluded their initial mission in October of that year. When UNDOF was re-organized in late 1993 (the Finnish Government had decided to pull its troops from UNDOF), the UNDOF HQ moved from Damascus to Camp Faouar in early 1994. the Austrian base camp. A logistics battalion was formed in 1996, when the Japanese deployed a contingent to bolster the Canadian element. The Canadians remained until 2006 when they were replaced by a contingent from India. A Slovakian infantry company arrived in 1998, replacing the third company of the Austrian battalion; the Slovakians remained until 2008 when a Croatian company assumed the same role within the Austrian battalion. The following year, the Polish battalion was replaced by a contingent from the Philippines.
The fighting between Syrian Army and Syrian Opposition around Quneitra came to international attention when in March 2013, the al-Qaeda affiliated group al-Nusra Front took 21 Filipino UN Disengagement Observer Force personnel hostage in the neutral buffer zone. According to a UN official, the personnel were taken hostage near Observation Post 58, which had sustained damage and been evacuated the previous weekend, following heavy combat nearby at Al Jamla. The personnel were eventually released, and returned to their base via Jordan and Israel on 12 March.
On 10 May 2013, the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Albert del Rosario announced his intentions to pull out their contingent of UN peacekeepers from the UNDOF zone. He suggested the risks in the area had gone "beyond tolerable limits". The announcement followed the kidnapping of four peacekeepers, shown on video to be kept as human shields by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. The total Philippine contingent numbered 342, approximately one third of the UN contingent at the time. On 6 June 2013, the Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann and Austrian foreign minister Michael Spindelegger announced that Austria would withdraw its troops from the UNDOF mission. This decision was made after Syrian rebels had attacked and temporarily captured the border crossing at Quneitra. A Filipino peacekeeper was wounded in the fighting. The Japanese and Croatians also withdrew around this time.
To replace the Austrians, a contingent of Nepalese troops, some 130 strong, were redeployed from Lebanon where they had formed part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon; the Fijians also deployed 170 more troops. Ireland also deployed 115 peacekeepers to serve with UNDOF in September 2013, based at Camp Faouar. The Irish peacekeepers were attacked by Syrian rebels on 29 November 2013. The Irish convoy came under small arms fire and was hit with an explosion before the rebels retreated.
In August 2014, Syrian rebels captured Fijian peacekeepers and surrounded Filipinos manning two separate UN posts. A group of 72 Filipino troops were also surrounded, but later managed to escape after engaging about 100 Islamist militants surrounding them in a seven-hour firefight. Irish UNDOF troops helped in the rescue. The 45 captured Fijian peacekeepers were released by al-Nusra Front rebels on 11 September 2014.
On 13 October 2017, Major General Francis Vib-Sanziri of Ghana was appointed as Head of Mission and Force Commander of UNDOF. He succeeded Major General Jai Shanker Menon of India, whose assignment ended on 30 September 2017.
UNDOF's budget is approved on an annual basis by the UN General Assembly. Its budget for July 2017 – June 2018 was US$57,653,700, representing less than 1% of the UN peacekeeping budget. As of 2017, there have been 58 fatalities, including one civilian staff, since 1974.
As of March 2021, UNDOF consisted of 1,096 troops provided by Nepal, India, Uruguay, Fiji, Ireland, Ghana, the Czech Republic and Bhutan. The troops are assisted by military observers from UNTSO's Observer Group Golan, along with international and local civilian staff. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Disengagement_Observer_Force |
Foreign relations of Sudan | Sudan is an active member of all pertinent African organizations and is a charter member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), established in 1963 and headquartered in Addis Ababa. During most of its time as a member of the OAU, it used its membership to keep the OAU out of the civil war. Even so, in 1994, the OAU mandated that negotiations toward ending the civil war be undertaken. Sudan consistently made its presence known in the OAU and continued to do so in its successor forum, the African Union (AU), created in 2002. In contrast to its policy of keeping the OAU out of the war in the South, Sudan accepted 8,000 AU troops in troubled Darfur (see War in Darfur), concluding that it was preferable to have an AU peacekeeping mission than one from the United Nations. However, Sudan both limited the number of AU troops and confined their role to monitoring the situation rather than engaging in more proactive peacekeeping. In mid-2007, al-Bashir finally agreed to allow UN forces to join AU peacekeeping operations in Darfur. The crisis in Darfur prevented Sudan from taking its turn in 2006 to assume the chairmanship of the AU; most AU members wanted Sudan to make more progress in ending the Darfur conflict. Subsequent indictment by the International Criminal Court further complicated al-Bashir's situation, and the AU continued to pass over his name in selecting a chairman.
Sudan is a charter member of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), established in 1996 as the successor to an earlier regional grouping. The focus of IGAD in the early 2000s was regional cooperation among its seven member states. IGAD played a critical role in ending the war between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Sudan People's Liberation Army but otherwise was not effective in mediating regional conflicts because of serious differences among its members, especially Ethiopia and Eritrea. Sudan is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and is one of 11 COMESA nations that had joined in a free-trade area and agreed to eliminate tariffs on goods originating in member countries. Sudan is a member of the economic union led by Libya known as the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. Sudan also belongs to the African Development Bank (ADB) and receives significant assistance from that organization. As of 2011, it had been in arrears to the ADB since 1995 but had begun making payments in order to pay down the debt. Sudan is an active member of the Nile Basin Initiative, which brought the riparian states together to discuss technical and political cooperation related to Nile water issues. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Sudan |
Arabs | Arab tribes are prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, Maghreb, the Sudan region and Horn Africa.
The Arabs of the Levant are traditionally divided into Qays and Yaman tribes. The distinction between Qays and Yaman dates back to the pre-Islamic era and was based on tribal affiliations and geographic locations.; they include Banu Kalb, Kinda, Ghassanids, and Lakhmids. The Qays were made up of tribes such as Banu Kilab, Banu Tayy, Banu Hanifa, and Banu Tamim, among others. The Yaman, on the other hand, were composed of tribes such as Banu Hashim, Banu Makhzum, Banu Umayya, and Banu Zuhra, among others.
There are also many Arab tribes indigenous to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Iran, including from well before the Arab conquest of Persia in 633 CE. The largest group of Iranian Arabs are the Ahwazi Arabs, including Banu Ka'b, Bani Turuf and the Musha'sha'iyyah sect. Smaller groups are the Khamseh nomads in Fars Province and the Arabs in Khorasan.
As a result of the centuries-long Arab migration to the Maghreb, various Arab tribes (including Banu Hilal, Banu Sulaym and Maqil) also settled in the Maghreb and formed the sub-tribes which exist to present-day. The Banu Hilal spent almost a century in Egypt before moving to Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, and another century later moved to Morocco.
According to Arab traditions, tribes are divided into different divisions called Arab skulls, which are described in the traditional custom of strength, abundance, victory, and honor. A number of them branched out, which later became independent tribes (sub-tribes). The majority of Arab tribes are descended from these major tribes.
They are:
Bakr, has descendants in Arabia and Iraq.
Kinanah, has descendants in Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, and Syria.
Hawazin, has descendants in Arabia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, and Iraq.
Tamim, has descendants in Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Algeria, and Morocco
Azd, has descendants in Arabia, Iraq, Levant, and North Africa.
Ghatafan, has descendants in Arabia and the Maghreb.
Madhhij, has descendants in Arabia and Iraq.
Abd al-Qays, has descendants in Arabia.
Al Qays (القيس), has descendants in Arabia.
Quda'a, has descendants in Arabia, Syria, and North Africa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabs |
Khuzestan province | During the Iran–Iraq War, Khuzestan was the focus of the Iraqi invasion of Iran, leading to the flight of thousands of the province's residents. As a result, Khuzestan suffered the heaviest damage of all Iranian provinces during the war. Iraq's President Saddam Hussein felt confident that the Arab population of the Khuzestan would react enthusiastically to the prospect of union with Iraq. However, resistance to the invasion was fierce, stalling the Iraqi military's advance, and ultimately opening a window of opportunity for an Iranian counter-offensive.
What used to be Iran's largest refinery at Abadan was destroyed, never to fully recover. Many of the famous nakhlestans (palm groves) were annihilated, cities were destroyed, historical sites were demolished, and nearly half the province captured by the invading Iraqi army. This created a mass exodus into other provinces that did not have the logistical capability of taking in such a large number of refugees.
However, by 1982, Iranian forces managed to push Iraqi forces out of Iran. The Battle of Khorramshahr (one of Khuzestan's largest cities and the most important Iranian port prior to the war) was a turning point in the war, and is officially celebrated every year in Iran.
The city of Khorramshahr was almost completely destroyed as a result of the scorched earth policy ordered by Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein. However, Iranian forces were able to prevent the Iraqis from attempting to spread the execution of this policy to other major urban centres.
From 22 September 1980 to the last day of the war, this province was always the scene of Iran's various operations to recapture the areas occupied by the Iraqi army forces. At the beginning of the war, cities such as Abadan, Susangerd, Bostan, Dezful, Andimeshk, Khorramshahr, and Ahvaz, which were the capital of the province, were regularly targeted by Iraqi army rocket and artillery attacks. The long-term occupation of some areas of the province, further contributed to the damage to natural and human capital in the province.
Since the war, the speed of growth and development of the province has been very slow. Khuzestan, despite benefiting from abundant natural resources including oil, has many economic, environmental, social, and construction problems, among others. High unemployment rate, water crisis, high dust, and lack of civil infrastructure are among the factors that sparked high dissatisfaction among residents. The frustrations typically manifested in protests and rallies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuzestan_province |
Global Peace Index | In 2017, 23 indicators were used to establish peacefulness scores for each country. The indicators were originally selected with the assistance of an expert panel in 2007 and are reviewed by the expert panel on an annual basis. The scores for each indicator are normalised on a scale of 1–5, whereby qualitative indicators are banded into five groupings, and quantitative ones are scored from 1–5, to the third decimal point. A table of the indicators is below. In the table, UCDP stands for the Uppsala Conflict Data Program maintained by the University of Uppsala in Sweden, EIU for The Economist Intelligence Unit, UNSCT for the United Nations Survey of Criminal Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, ICPS is the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, IISS for the International Institute for Strategic Studies publication The Military Balance, and SIPRI for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfers Database.
Indicators not already ranked on a 1 to 5 scale were converted by using the following formula: x = [x - min(x)] / [max(x) - min(x)], where max(x) and min(x) are the highest and lowest values for that indicator of the countries ranked in the index. The 0 to 1 scores that resulted were then converted to the 1 to 5 scale. Individual indicators were then weighted according to the expert panel's judgment of their importance. The scores were then tabulated into two weighted sub-indices: internal peace, weighted at 60% of a country's final score, and external peace, weighted at 40% of a country's final score. "Negative Peace", defined as the absence of violence or of the fear of violence, is used as the definition of peace to create the Global Peace Index. An additional aim of the GPI database is to facilitate deeper study of the concept of positive peace, or those attitudes, institutions, and structures that drive peacefulness in society. The GPI also examines relationships between peace and reliable international measures, including democracy and transparency, education and material well-being. As such, it seeks to understand the relative importance of a range of potential determinants, or "drivers", which may influence the nurturing of peaceful societies, both internally and externally.
Statistical analysis is applied to GPI data to uncover specific conditions conducive of peace. Researchers have determined that Positive Peace, which includes the attitudes, institutions, and structures that pre-empt conflict and facilitate functional societies, is the main driver of peace. The eight pillars of positive peace are well-functioning government, sound business environment, acceptance of the rights of others, good relations with neighbours, free flow of information, high levels of human capital, low levels of corruption, and equitable distribution of resources. Well-functioning government, low levels of corruption, acceptance of the rights of others, and good relations with neighbours are more important in countries suffering from high levels of violence. Free flow of information and sound business environment become more important when a country is approaching the global average level of peacefulness, also described as the Mid-Peace level. Low levels of corruption is the only Pillar that is strongly significant across all three levels of peacefulness. This suggests it is an important transformational factor at all stages of a nation's development. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index |
World War I | The years before 1914 were marked by a series of crises in the Balkans, as other powers sought to benefit from the Ottoman decline. While Pan-Slavic and Orthodox Russia considered itself the protector of Serbia and other Slav states, they preferred the strategically vital Bosporus straits to be controlled by a weak Ottoman government, rather than an ambitious Slav power like Bulgaria. Russia had ambitions in northeastern Anatolia while its clients had overlapping claims in the Balkans. These competing interests divided Russian policy-makers and added to regional instability.
Austrian statesmen viewed the Balkans as essential for the continued existence of their Empire and saw Serbian expansion as a direct threat. The 1908–1909 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria annexed the former Ottoman territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it had occupied since 1878. Timed to coincide with the Bulgarian Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, this unilateral action was denounced by the European powers, but accepted as there was no consensus on how to resolve the situation. Some historians see this as a significant escalation, ending any chance of Austria cooperating with Russia in the Balkans, while also damaging diplomatic relations between Serbia and Italy, both of whom had their expansionist ambitions in the region.
Tensions increased after the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War demonstrated Ottoman weakness and led to the formation of the Balkan League, an alliance of Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece. The League quickly overran most of the Ottomans' territory in the Balkans during the 1912–1913 First Balkan War, much to the surprise of outside observers. The Serbian capture of ports on the Adriatic resulted in partial Austrian mobilisation, starting on 21 November 1912, including units along the Russian border in Galicia. In a meeting the next day, the Russian government decided not to mobilise in response, unwilling to precipitate a war for which they were not as of yet prepared to handle.
The Great Powers sought to re-assert control through the 1913 Treaty of London, which had created an independent Albania while enlarging the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. However, disputes between the victors sparked the 33-day Second Balkan War, when Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on 16 June 1913; it was defeated, losing most of Macedonia to Serbia and Greece, and Southern Dobruja to Romania. The result was that even countries which benefited from the Balkan Wars, such as Serbia and Greece, felt cheated of their "rightful gains", while for Austria it demonstrated the apparent indifference with which other powers viewed their concerns, including Germany. This complex mix of resentment, nationalism and insecurity helps explain why the pre-1914 Balkans became known as the "powder keg of Europe". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I |
Lihyan | While the Lihyanites' control over Taymāʾ has become clear, the period in which this occurred is largely unknown. Following Nabonidus’ departure, it is assumed that the Achaemenids succeeded him as rulers of the city; this assumption of a one-and-a-half-century Achaemenid rule over the oasis is based solely on a single piece of evidence—the ‘Taymāʾ stone’. Discovered in 1884 by C. Huber and J. Euting, the stele’s front features an Imperial Aramaic inscription detailing the introduction of a new deity, ṣlm hgm, the designation of its priest, and the allocation of properties for the temple. The text, as translated by P. Stein, reads: On (day) X of (the month) Tišrī of the year 22(+X) of [...] (2) the king, in Taymāʾ.
Ṣalm of [Maḥram, ŠNGLʾ] (3) and [ʾA]šīmā, the gods of Taymāʾ, for [Ṣa]lm of (4) [H]G[M] [they have mentioned(?)] his name. On this day ... (5–8) [ ... ] (9) [ ... ] Therefore(?) ... this [ste]le(?), (10) [ ... Ṣal]mšēzeb, the son of Petosiris, (11) in the house of Ṣalm of HGM.
Therefore the gods (12) Taymāʾ have granted to Ṣalmšēzeb, the son of Petosiris, (13) and to his descendants in the house of Ṣalm of HGM (the following gift). And anyone, (14) who destroys this stele – the gods of Taymāʾ (15) may they eradicate him, and his descendants and his name from the face of (16) Taymāʾ.
And behold, this is the gift, which (17) Ṣalm of Maḥram, ŠNGLʾ and ʾAšīmāʾ, (18) the gods of Taymāʾ, [have given]to Ṣalm of HGM [...]: (19) of (ordinary) land (of) date palms: 18(?), and of the land (20) of the king (of) date palms: 6, all date palms (in sum): (21) 21(!), year by year.
Neither gods nor a man/people (22) shall remove Ṣalmšēzeb, the son of Petosiris, (23) from this house nor his descendant[s] or his name (24) (as) priests <in>(?) this house for[ever].
Neo-Babylonian influences are clearly visible in the iconography of this stele, which dates to the 22nd year of a monarch whose name disappeared. Assigning it to Nabonidus, who ruled no more than 17 years (556–539), however, is impossible. Therefore, scholars generally place the stele in the Achaemenid era, where three kings—Darius I (522–486), Artaxerxes I (465–424), and Artaxerxes II (405–359)—reigned for a minimum of 22 years each. According to J. Naveh palaeographic considerations, the stele should be dated to the end of the 5th or early 4th century BC. Hence, a date under Artaxerxes II, in 383 BC, is typically preferred. Building upon this, P. Stein initially posited that the Achaemenids held direct sway over Taymāʾ until the initial half of the 4th century BC, with the Lihyanite kingdom emerging or expanding to Taymāʾ only thereafter. Newly discovered epigraphic evidence has prompted the latter author to lean towards an earlier date for the stele, around 500 BC, which opens up the possibility of a reduced duration of Achaemenid suzerainty in the oasis.
Regardless of dating uncertainties, the key question revolves around whether the Taymāʾ stone refers to a foreign king; C. Edens and G. Bawden proposed, more than 30 years ago, that the missing name might be that of a local ruler. They overlooked the idea that it could represent a Lihyanite king, given the absence of documented Lihyanite rule over Taymāʾ back then. Since it’s now evident that the Lihyanites ruled Taymāʾ, this possibility demands serious consideration. At least three Lihyanite kings reigned for 22 years or more:hnʾs bn tlmy (22 recorded regnal years), lḏn bn hnʾs (35 years) and tlmy bn hnʾs (42 years). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lihyan |
Dragut | In 1548 he was appointed Beylerbeyi (Chief Governor) of Algeria by Suleiman the Magnificent. In that same year he ordered the construction of a quadrireme galley at the naval arsenal of Djerba, which he started using in 1549. In August 1548 he landed at Castellamare di Stabia on the Bay of Naples and captured the city along with nearby Pozzuoli. From there he went to Procida. A few days later, he captured a Spanish galley loaded with troops and gold at Capo Miseno near Procida. In the same days he captured the Maltese galley, La Caterinetta, at the Gulf of Naples, with its cargo of 70,000 gold ducats which were collected by the Knights of St. John from the churches of France with the aim of strengthening the defenses of Tripoli, which was then under Maltese control.
In May 1549 he set sail towards Liguria with 21 galleys and in July he assaulted Rapallo, later replenishing his ships with water and other supplies at San Fruttuoso. From there he sailed to Portofino and landed at the port, before appearing at San Remo where he captured an Aragonese galley from Barcelona ] heading towards Naples. From there he first sailed towards Corsica and later towards Calabria<, where he assaulted the city of Palmi.
In February 1550, sailing with a force of 36 galleys, he recaptured Mahdia along with Al Munastir, Sousse and most of Tunisia. In May 1550 he assaulted the ports of Sardinia and Spain and landed on their coasts with a force of six galleys and 14 galiots. Still in May he unsuccessfully tried to capture Bonifacio in Corsica. On his way back to Tunisia, he stopped at Gozo to replenish his ships with water and to gather information on the activities of the Maltese Knights. He later sailed towards Liguria.
In June 1550, while Turgut Reis was sailing near Genoa, Andrea Doria and Bailiff Claude de la Sengle of the Maltese Knights attacked Mahdia in Tunisia. In the meantime, Turgut Reis was busy assaulting and sacking Rapallo for a third time, before raiding the coasts of Spain. He then sailed to the Tyrrhenian Sea and towards the beginning of July landed at the western shores of Sardinia, before returning to Djerba, where he learned that Doria and Claude de la Sengle had been attacking Mahdia and Tunis. He collected a force of 4500 troops and 60 sipahis and marched on Mahdia to assist the local resistance. He did not succeed and returned to Djerba with his troops.
In September 1550 Mahdia surrendered to the joint Spanish-Sicilian-Maltese force. In the meantime, Turgut Reis was repairing his ships at the beach of Djerba. On October, Andrea Doria appeared with his fleet at Djerba and blocked the entrance of the island's lagoon with his ships, trapping the beached galleys of Turgut Reis inside the Channel of Cantera. Turgut Reis had all his ships dragged overland through hastily dug canals and on a heavily greased boardway to the other side of the island and sailed to Istanbul, capturing two galleys on the way, one Genoese and one Sicilian, which were en route to Djerba in order to assist the forces of Doria. Prince Abu Beker, son of the Sultan of Tunis, who was an ally of Spain, was on the Genoese galley.
After arriving in Istanbul, Turgut Reis, under mandate by Sultan Suleiman, mobilized a fleet of 112 galleys and two galleasses with 12,000 Janissaries, and in 1551 set sail with the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha towards the Adriatic Sea and bombarded the Venetian ports, inflicting serious damage on Venetian shipping.
In May 1551 they landed on Sicily and bombarded the eastern shores of the island, most notably the city of Augusta, as revenge for the Viceroy of Sicily's role in the invasion and destruction of Mahdia, where most inhabitants had been massacred by the joint Spanish-Sicilian-Maltese force. They then attempted to capture Malta, landing with about 10,000 men at the southern port of Marsa Muscietto. They laid siege to the citadels of Birgu and Senglea, and later went north and assaulted Mdina, but lifted the siege after realizing that it was impossible to capture the island with the number of troops in hand.
Instead, they moved to the neighboring island of Gozo, where they bombarded the citadel for several days. The Knights' governor there, Galatian de Sesse, realizing that resistance was futile, surrendered the citadel, and the corsairs sacked the town. Taking virtually the entire population of Gozo (approximately 5,000 people) into captivity, Turgut and Sinan set sail from the port of Mġarr ix-Xini in Gozo and headed towards Libya, where they shipped the captives to Tarhuna Wa Msalata. They later sailed towards Tripoli with the aim of conquering the strategic port city and its environs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragut |
Garlic | Garlic is a fundamental component in many or most dishes of various regions, including eastern Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, northern Africa, southern Europe, Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America. Latin American seasonings, particularly, use garlic in sofritos and mofongos.
Oils can be flavored with garlic cloves. These infused oils are used to season all categories of vegetables, meats, breads, and pasta. Garlic, along with fish sauce, chopped fresh chilis, lime juice, sugar, and water, is a basic essential item in dipping fish sauce, a highly used dipping sauce condiment used in Indochina. In East and Southeast Asia, chili oil with garlic is a popular dipping sauce, especially for meat and seafood. Tuong ot toi Viet Nam (Vietnam chili garlic sauce) is a highly popular condiment and dip across North America and Asia.
In some cuisines, the young bulbs are pickled for three to six weeks in a mixture of sugar, salt, and spices. In eastern Europe, the shoots are pickled and eaten as an appetizer. Laba garlic, prepared by soaking garlic in vinegar, is a type of pickled garlic served with dumplings in northern China to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
Garlic is essential in Middle Eastern and Arabic cooking, with its presence in many food items. In the Levant, garlic is traditionally crushed together with olive oil, and occasionally salt, to create a Middle Eastern garlic sauce called Toum (تُوم; meaning "garlic" in Arabic). While not exclusively served with meats, toum is commonly paired with chicken or other meat dishes such as shawarma. Garlic is also a key component in some hummus varieties, an Arabic dip composed of chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, and salt.
Lightly smoked garlic is used in British and other European cuisine. It is particularly prized for stuffing poultry and game, and in soups and stews.
Emulsifying garlic with olive oil produces aioli. Garlic, oil, and a chunky base produce skordalia. Crushed garlic, oil, and water produce a strong flavored sauce, mujdei. Blending garlic, almond, oil, and soaked bread produces ajoblanco. Tzatziki, yogurt mixed with garlic and salt, is a common sauce in Eastern Mediterranean cuisines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic |
Faisal I of Iraq | Faisal regularly attended Friday prayers as it helped him meet with the public Iraqi people more. Faisal was noticeably unaffected by sectarian considerations, and was noted by al-Rihani to have a faith that reflected all Islamic dominations, which made him respect, and be tolerant to all world religions. Abbas Baghdadi, a young writer, recounted how Faisal would pull up in the Arab attire to the al-Sarai Mosque for Friday Prayers, which was decided to be the main Friday Prayers mosque. Faisal has also ordered the reconstruction of Sufi shrines in Mosul such as the tekke of the Shadhili Order. Faisal also met with leaders of smaller religious communities such as chief Rabbis from both Baghdad and Mosul.
Faisal had great tolerance for Shi'i Muslims and was a component of inter-faith. Faisal's main link with the community was the Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr, who was one of the only people who could enter the king's prescience without further notice. Faisal always wanted to remind Shi'i Muslims of his linage to Ali. Due to this, his coronation took place on 18 Dhu al-Hijja according to the Islamic Calendar, which coincided with Eid al-Ghadir. Throughout his reign, especially in his early days, Faisal had wanted to increase the prescience of Shi'i Muslims in administrations. Example being the hiring of Tawfiq al-Suwaidi in the Baghdadi Law College, accepting qualifications of Shi'i Muslim-based schools, help fund the commemorating of Muharram, working with Ayatollah Medhi al-Khalissi who was a friend of Sharif Hussein, and visiting Najaf and Karbala to strengthen his position. Reportedly, Faisal once told Sir Percy Cox that the Iraqi Shi'i Muslim Mujtahideen were prepared to back him up.
In March 1932, just months before independence, Faisal wrote a memorandum where he criticized the Iraqi people's lack of Iraqi national identity in the newly established country, writing: Iraq is a kingdom ruled by a Sunni Arab government founded on the wreckage of Ottoman rule. This government rules over a Kurdish segment, the majority of which is ignorant, that includes persons with personal ambitions who lead it to abandon it [the government] under the pretext that it does not belong to their ethnicity. [The government also rules over] an ignorant Shiite majority that belongs to the same ethnicity of the government, but the persecutions that had befallen them as a result of Turkish rule, which did not enable them to take part in governance and exercise it, drove a deep wedge between the Arab people divided into these two sects. Unfortunately, all of this made this majority, or the persons who harbor special aspirations, the religious among them, the seekers of posts without qualification, and those who did not benefit materially from the new rule, to pretend that they are still being persecuted because they are Shiites. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq |
Islamic fundamentalism in Iran | Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi (Persian: سيد مجتبی میرلوحی, c. 1924 – 18 January 1956), more commonly known as Navvab Safavi (Persian: نواب صفوی), emerged on political scene around 1945 when after only two years of study, he left the seminaries of Najaf to found the Fada'iyan-e Islam, recruiting frustrated youth from suburbs of Tehran for acts of terror, proclaiming:
"We are alive and God, the revengeful, is alert. The blood of the destitute has long been dripping from the fingers of the selfish pleasure seekers, who are hiding, each with a different name and in a different colour, behind black curtains of oppression, thievery and crime. Once in a while the divine retribution puts them in their place, but the rest of them do not learn a lesson ..."
In 1950, at 26 years of age, he presented his idea of an Islamic State in a treatise, Barnameh-ye Inqalabi-ye Fada'ian-i Islam. Despite his hatred of interfering infidel foreign powers, his group attempted to kill prime minister Muhammad Musaddiq, and he congratulated the shah after the 1953 coup deposed Mosaddegh:
"The country was saved by Islam and with the power of faith ... The Shah and prime minister and ministers have to be believers in and promoters of, shi'ism, and the laws that are in opposition to the divine laws of God ... must be nullified ... The intoxicants, the shameful exposure and carelessness of women, and sexually provocative music ... must be done away with and the superior teachings of Islam ... must replace them."
He enjoyed a close enough association with the government to be able to attend a 1954 Islamic Conference in Jordan and traveled to Egypt and meet Sayyid Qutb.
He clashed with Shia Marja', Hossein Borujerdi, who rejected his ideas and questioned him about the robberies that his organization committed on gun point, Safavi replied:
"Our intention is to borrow from people. What we take is for establishing a government based on the model of Imam Ali's government. Our goal is sacred and prior to these tools. When we established an Aliid government-like state, then we give people their money back."
Fada'ian-e Islam called for excommunication of Borujerdi and the defrocking of religious scholars who opposed their idea of Islam, Navvab Safavi did not like Broujerdi's idea of Shia-Sunni rapprochement (Persian: تقریب), he advocated Shia-Sunni unification (Persian: وحدت) under Islamist agenda. Fada'ian-e Islam carried out assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razmara and Ahmad Kasravi. On 22 November 1955, after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hosein Ala', Navvab Safavi was arrested and sentenced to death on 25 December 1955 under terrorism charges, along with three other comrades. The organization dispersed but after the death of Ayatullah Borujerdi, the Fada'ian-e Islam sympathizers found a new leader in Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini who appeared on political horizon through the June 1963 riots in Qom. In 1965, prime minister Hassan Ali Mansur was assassinated by the group. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism_in_Iran |
Fall of Mosul | On 4 June, Iraqi police, under the command of Lieutenant General Mahdi Gharawi, cornered IS military leader Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi near Mosul, in Iraq. Al-Bilawi blew himself up, and Gharawi hoped it would prevent an attack.
At 2:30 in morning, IS convoys of pickup trucks, each truck carrying four fighters, entered Mosul by shooting at the city's checkpoints. Though Mosul's first line of defense was thought to contain 2,500 soldiers, Gharawi says that "reality was closer to 500". He noted that since all of the city's tanks were being used by Iraqi forces in Al Anbar Governorate, the city was left with little to combat the IS fighters. The insurgents hanged, burned, and crucified some Iraqi soldiers during their attack.
On 5 June, a curfew was imposed in the city. The government used helicopters to bomb the militants. In the southern part of the city, five suicide bombers blasted an arsenal.
On 6 June IS began their attack on the northwestern part of the city. The IS forces in the city totaled 1,500 militants, outnumbered by Iraqi forces by more than 15 to 1. Two suicide bomber cars exploded, in Muwaffakiya, a village near Mosul, killing six Shabak soldiers. After the attacks, most of the fighters either retreated into the desert or camouflaged among the local population.
On 8 June, the group launched a double bomb attack against a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party office in Jalawla, in which eighteen people died. That day, about a hundred vehicles entered Mosul, carrying at least four hundred men. Sleeper cells hidden within the city were then activated and according to police, "neighbourhoods rallied to them". Assassinations carried out by the sleeper cells left Mosul leaderless. The group also bombed a police station in the neighborhood of al-Uraybi, and encircled an abandoned building on the west of Tigris River being used as a headquarters for a group of thirty police officers.
On 9 June, IS executed fifteen Iraqi security force members who were captured in Tikrit. According to CBS News, IS fighters armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the Nineveh provincial headquarters that same day. By that time, the Fourth Battalion were among the last local police fighting the attackers, the rest of the defense forces having run away or joined the opposition. Lacking plans and ammunition, Gharawi ordered the Iraqi military to retreat on the advice of retired general Khaled al-Obeidi. On that same night, IS and Sunni militants attacked Mosul, causing heavy fighting overnight. Iraqi Army soldiers fled the city while it was under attack, allowing the militants to control much of Mosul by midday on 10 June. The militants seized numerous facilities, including Mosul International Airport, which had served as a hub for the U.S. military in the region. Militants captured the helicopters present at the airport, in addition to "several villages" and a military airbase in south Saladin Governorate. The Iraqi army "crumbled in the face of the militant assault", which is evidenced by the fact that soldiers abandoned their weapons and dressed as civilians to blend in with the noncombatants.
The city fell to the IS on 10 June 2014 after four days of clashes between the insurgents and the Iraqi military. There were reports that the group was advancing from Mosul to Kirkuk at the time. While capturing the city, the group freed nearly 1,000 prisoners, some of whom were greeted by the fighters. Black flags were also flown over government buildings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Mosul |
Persian carpet | The Sasanian Empire, which succeeded the Parthian Empire, was recognized as one of the leading powers of its time, alongside its neighbouring Byzantine Empire, for a period of more than 400 years. The Sasanids established their empire roughly within the borders set by the Achaemenids, with the capital at Ctesiphon. This last Persian dynasty before the arrival of Islam adopted Zoroastrianism as the state religion.
When and how exactly the Persians started weaving pile carpets is currently unknown, but the knowledge of carpet weaving, and of suitable designs for floor coverings, was certainly available in the area covering Byzance, Anatolia, and Persia: Anatolia, located between Byzance and Persia, was ruled by the Roman Empire since 133 BCE. Geographically and politically, by changing alliances and warfare as well as by trade, Anatolia connected the East Roman with the Persian Empire. Artistically, both empires have developed similar styles and decorative vocabulary, as exemplified by mosaics and architecture of Roman Antioch. A Turkish carpet pattern depicted on Jan van Eyck's "Paele Madonna" painting was traced back to late Roman origins and related to early Islamic floor mosaics found in the Umayyad palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar.
Flat weaving and embroidery were known during the Sasanian period. Elaborate Sasanian silk textiles were well preserved in European churches, where they were used as coverings for relics, and survived in church treasuries. More of these textiles were preserved in Tibetan monasteries, and were removed by monks fleeing to Nepal during the Chinese cultural revolution, or excavated from burial sites like Astana, on the Silk Road near Turfan. The high artistic level reached by Persian weavers is further exemplified by the report of the historian Al-Tabari about the Spring of Khosrow carpet, taken as booty by the Arabian conquerors of Ctesiphon in 637 AD. The description of the rug's design by al-Tabari makes it seem unlikely that the carpet was pile woven.
Fragments of pile rugs from findspots in north-eastern Afghanistan, reportedly originating from the province of Samangan, have been carbon-14 dated to a time span from the turn of the second century to the early Sasanian period. Among these fragments, some show depictions of animals, like various stags (sometimes arranged in a procession, recalling the design of the Pazyryk carpet) or a winged mythical creature. Wool is used for warp, weft, and pile, the yarn is crudely spun, and the fragments are woven with the asymmetric knot associated with Persian and far-eastern carpets. Every three to five rows, pieces of unspun wool, strips of cloth and leather are woven in. These fragments are now in the Al-Sabah Collection in the Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait.
The carpet fragments, although reliably dated to the early Sasanian time, do not seem to be related to the splendid court carpets described by the Arab conquerors. Their crude knots incorporating shag on the reverse hints at the need for increased insulation. With their coarsely finished animal and hunting depictions, these carpets were likely woven by nomadic people. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_carpet |
Narmer | Narmer's tomb in Umm el-Qa'ab near Abydos in Upper Egypt consists of two joined chambers (B17 and B18), lined in mud brick. Although both Émile Amélineau and Petrie excavated tombs B17 and B18, it was only in 1964 that Kaiser identified them as being Narmer's. Narmer's tomb is located next to the tombs of Ka, who likely ruled Upper Egypt just before Narmer, and Hor-Aha, who was his immediate successor.
As the tomb dates back more than 5,000 years, and has been pillaged, repeatedly, from antiquity to modern times, it is amazing that anything useful could be discovered in it. Because of the repeated disturbances in Umm el-Qa'ab, many articles of Narmer's were found in other graves, and objects of other kings were recovered in Narmer's grave. However, Flinders Petrie during the period 1899–1903, and, starting in the 1970s, the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) have made discoveries of the greatest importance to the history of Early Egypt by their re-excavation of the tombs of Umm el-Qa'ab.
Despite the chaotic condition of the cemetery, inscriptions on both wood and bone, seal impressions, as well as dozens of flint arrowheads were found. (Petrie says with dismay that "hundreds" of arrowheads were discovered by "the French", presumably Amélineau. What happened to them is not clear, but none ended up in the Cairo Museum.) Flint knives and a fragment of an ebony chair leg were also discovered in Narmer's tomb, all of which might be part of the original funerary assemblage. The flint knives and fragment of a chair leg were not included in any of Petrie's publications, but are now at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology (University College London), registration numbers UC35679, UC52786, and UC35682. According to Dreyer, these arrowheads are probably from the tomb of Djer, where similar arrowheads were found.
It is likely that all of the kings of Ancient Egypt buried in Umm el-Qa'ab had funerary enclosures in Abydos' northern cemetery, near the cultivation line. These were characterized by large mud brick walls that enclosed space in which funerary ceremonies are believed to have taken place. Eight enclosures have been excavated, two of which have not been definitely identified. While it has yet to be confirmed, one of these unidentified funerary enclosures may have belonged to Narmer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer |
Osman Hamdi Bey | Osman Hamdi was the son of Ibrahim Edhem Pasha, an Ottoman Grand Vizier (in office 1877–1878, replacing Midhat Pasha) who was originally a Greek boy from the Ottoman island of Sakız (Chios) orphaned at a very young age following the Chios massacre there. He was adopted by Kaptan-ı Derya (Grand Admiral) Hüsrev Pasha and eventually rose to the ranks of the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire.
Osman Hamdi went to primary school in the popular Istanbul quarter of Beşiktaş; after which he studied law, first in Istanbul (1856) and then in Paris (1860). However, he decided to pursue his interest in painting instead, left the Law program, and trained under French orientalist painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gustave Boulanger. During his nine-year stay in Paris, the international capital of fine arts at the time, he showed a keen interest for the artistic events of his day.
His stay in Paris was also marked by the first ever visit by an Ottoman sultan to Western Europe, when Sultan Abdülaziz was invited to the Exposition Universelle (1867) by Emperor Napoleon III. He also met many of the Young Ottomans in Paris, and even though he was exposed to their liberal ideas, he did not participate in their political activities, being the son of an Ottoman pasha who was loyal to the sultan and did not challenge the old absolutist system. Osman Hamdi Bey also met his first wife Marie, a French woman, in Paris when he was a student. After receiving his father's blessings, she accompanied him to Istanbul (Constantinople) when he returned in 1869, where the two got married and had two daughters.
Once back in Turkey, he was sent to the Ottoman province of Baghdad as part of the administrative team of Midhat Pasha (the leading political figure and reformer among the Young Ottomans who enacted the First Ottoman Constitution in 1876, Midhat Pasha served as the Grand Vizier between 1876–1877, before being replaced by İbrahim Edhem Pasha, Osman Hamdi Bey's father.) In 1871, Osman Hamdi returned to Istanbul, as the vice-director of the Protocol Office of the Palace. During the 1870s, he worked on several assignments in the upper echelons of the Ottoman bureaucracy. He was appointed as the first mayor of Kadıköy in 1875, and stayed in that position for one year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osman_Hamdi_Bey |
Science and technology in Morocco | The Moroccan Innovation Strategy was launched at the country's first National Innovation Summit in June 2009 by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Investment and the Digital Economy. It has three main thrusts:
to develop domestic demand for innovation;
foster public–private linkages; and
introduce innovative funding mechanisms, including Intilak for innovative start-ups and Tatwir for industrial enterprises or consortia.
Morocco has managed to navigate the fallout from the global financial crisis relatively well, with average growth of over 4% between 2008 and 2013. However, as Europe is the main destination for Moroccan exports, these have been affected by the slowdown in the European economy since 2008. The Moroccan economy is diversifying but remains focused on low value-added products: the latter still represent about 70% of manufactured goods and 80% of exports. There are also signs of waning competitiveness in some areas. In recent years, Morocco has conceded market shares for clothing and shoes in the face of tough international competition from Asia, in particular, but managed to expand its market share for fertilizers, passenger vehicles and equipment for the distribution of electricity.
The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is supporting research in advanced technologies and the development of innovative cities in Fez, Rabat and Marrakesh. The Moroccan Innovation Strategy fixed the target of producing 1,000 Moroccan patents and creating 200 innovative start-ups by 2014. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and New Technologies (as it has since become) created a Moroccan Club of Innovation in 2011, in partnership with the Moroccan Office of Industrial and Commercial Property. The idea is to create a network of players in innovation, including researchers, entrepreneurs, students and academics, to help them develop innovative projects.
The government is encouraging citizen engagement in innovation on the part of public institutions. One example is the Moroccan Phosphate Office (Office chérifien des phosphates), which has invested in a project to develop a smart city, King Mohammed VI Green City, around Mohammed VI University located between Casablanca and Marrakesh, at a cost of DH 4.7 billion (circa US$479 million). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Morocco |
Ash'arism | Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī was born in Basra, Iraq, and was a descendant of Abū Mūsa al-Ashʿarī, which belonged to the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba). As a young man he studied under al-Jubba'i, a renowned teacher of Muʿtazilite theology and philosophy. He was noted for his teachings on atomism, among the earliest Islamic philosophies, and for al-Ashʿarī this was the basis for propagating the view that God created every moment in time and every particle of matter. He nonetheless believed in free will and predestination, elaborating the thoughts of Dirar ibn 'Amr and Abu Hanifa into a "dual agent" or "acquisition" (iktisab) account of free will.
While Al-Ashʿarī opposed the views of the rival Muʿtazilite school, he was also opposed to the view which rejected all debate, held by certain schools such as the Zahiri ("literalist"), Mujassimite (anthropotheist), schools for their over-emphasis on taqlid (imitation) in his Istihsan al‑Khaud: But instead, Imam Al-Ash'ari affirmed the ambiguous verses in the Qur'an (such as those about the hand and eye's) without a "how" (modality) and without a meaning(meaning, he consigned the meaning to Allah(God)), which is called Tafweed. He also allowed another orthodox way of dealing with the ambiguous verses in the Qur'an called Ta'wil (interpretation based on the arabic language and revelation).
A section of the people (i.e., the Zahirites and others) made capital out of their own ignorance; discussions and rational thinking about matters of faith became a heavy burden for them, and, therefore, they became inclined to blind faith and blind following (taqlid). They condemned those who tried to rationalize the principles of religion as 'innovators'. They considered discussion about motion, rest, body, accident, colour, space, atom, the leaping of atoms, and Attributes of God, to be an innovation and a sin. They said that had such discussions been the right thing, the Prophet and his Companions would have definitely done so; they further pointed out that the Prophet, before his death, discussed and fully explained all those matters which were necessary from the religious point of view, leaving none of them to be discussed by his followers; and since he did not discuss the problems mentioned above, it was evident that to discuss them must be regarded as an innovation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash%27arism |
Marriage in Islam | In today's world, Muslims practice Islamic marital laws in a multitude of ways all over the globe. In the United States, for example, 95% of Muslim American couples included in a 2012 study by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding had completed both the Nikkah and had obtained a civil marriage license, which is required to have a marriage legally recognized in the United States. The study also shares that "In some cases, the Islamic marriage contract is completed once the couple has decided to get married, but cohabitation occurs later after the wedding reception. In other cases, the Islamic marriage contract is completed simultaneously with the civil marriage and is followed immediately by the wedding reception."
There is ongoing debate about whether or not Sharia should be recognized in western countries like the United States and Australia that would allow for the Nikkah to be recognized as a legally valid marriage. There are also other elements to the Islamic marriage rituals that have difficulty being acknowledged in courts, according to the study, including the Mahr, or the dowry. Women who are denied their dowry do not have a clear path to legal contestation in either the US or Canada.
Studies have also shown that even young Muslim Americans who might describe themselves as "not very religious" embrace the rituals of their faith at important moments of transition – birth, death, and marriage. These occasions motivate reaffirmation of emotional and behavioral touchstones, even for those who do not practice their faith by attending mosque, praying or fasting regularly.
When it comes to divorce, the 2014 study conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding states that, "Two divorce rates commonly cited for American Muslims include 32.33% and 21.3%, respectively." Within the United States and Canada, many Muslim couples interviewed in the study mention that they value a religious divorce and its proceedings. Some turn to religious figures to help them navigate the divorce process, while many still go through the courts to terminate the civil marriage. Divorced Muslim women today also face the stigmas associated with being divorced within the North American Muslim community that can make it difficult for them seek remarriage.
Gender roles and ideas about marriage have also shifted since the early onset of Islam when many of the rules around marriage were established. ISPU reports that "the most frequent source of marital conflict in this study was conflict over changing gender roles and expectations," citing a nation-wide increase in women in higher education and professional jobs over the past three decades, and says that they "In many cases are trying to integrate childrearing and family life with professional goals".
In March 2017, Salamet Memetimin, an ethnic Uyghur and the Communist Party secretary for Chaka township's Bekchan village in Qira County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang, China, was relieved of her duties for taking her nikah marriage vows at her home. In interviews with Radio Free Asia in 2020, residents and officials of Shufu County (Kona Sheher), Kashgar Prefecture (Kashi) stated that it was no longer possible to perform traditional Uyghur nikah marriage rites in the country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Islam |
Al-Andalus | In Córdoba, Abd ar-Rahman I built the Great Mosque of Córdoba in 785. It was expanded multiple times up until the 10th century, and after the Reconquista it was converted into a Catholic cathedral. Its key features include a hypostyle hall with marble columns supporting two-tiered arches, a horseshoe-arch mihrab, ribbed domes, a courtyard (sahn) with gardens, and a minaret (later converted into a bell tower).: 17–21, 61–79 Abd ar-Rahman III, at the height of his power, began construction of Madinat al-Zahra, a luxurious palace-city to serve as a new capital.: 51–58 The Umayyads also reconstructed the Roman-era bridge over the Guadalquivir River in Córdoba, while the Almohads later added the Calahorra Tower to the bridge.: 39, 45, 101, 137 The Bab al-Mardum Mosque (later converted to a church) in Toledo is a well-preserved example of a small neighbourhood mosque built at the end of the Caliphate period.: 79
The official workshops of the Caliphate, such as those at Madinat al-Zahra, produced luxury goods for use at court or as gifts for guests, allies, and diplomats, which stimulated artistic production. Many objects produced in the caliph's workshops later made their way into the collections of museums and Christian cathedrals in Europe. Among the most famous objects of this period are ivory boxes which are carved with vegetal, figurative, and epigraphic motifs. Notable surviving examples include the Pyxis of al-Mughira, the Pyxis of Zamora, and the Leyre Casket.
During the Taifas period, art and culture continued to flourish despite the political fragmentation of Al-Andalus. The Aljaferia Palace of Zaragoza is the most significant palace preserved from this period, featuring complex ornamental arcades and stucco decoration. In other cities, a number of important palaces or fortresses were begun or expanded by local dynasties such as the Alcazaba of Málaga and the Alcazaba of Almería. Other examples of architecture from around this period include the Bañuelo of Granada, an Islamic bathhouse.: 116–128 In Seville, Almohad rulers built the Great Mosque of Seville (later transformed into the Cathedral of Seville), which consisted of a hypostyle prayer hall, a courtyard (now known as the Patio de los Naranjos or Court of Oranges), and a massive minaret tower now known as the Giralda. The minaret was later expanded after being converted into a bell tower for the current cathedral.: 130–133 Almohad architecture promoted new forms and decorative designs such as the multifoil arch and the sebka motif, probably influenced by the Caliphate-period architecture of Córdoba.: 232–234, 257–258
Artists and intellectuals took refuge at Granada after the Christian kingdoms expanded significantly in the 13th century. The palaces of the Alhambra and the Generalife in Granada reflect the culture and art of the last centuries of Muslim rule of Al-Andalus. The complex was begun by Ibn al-Ahmar, the first Nasrid emir, and the last major additions were made during the reigns of Yusuf I (1333–1353) and Muhammad V (1353–1391).: 152 It integrates buildings and gardens with the natural qualities of the site and is a testament to Andalusi culture and to the skills of the Muslim artisans, craftsmen, and builders of their era. Nasrid architecture continued the earlier traditions of Andalusi architecture while also synthesizing them into its own distinctive style, which had many similarities with contemporary Marinid architecture in North Africa.: 219, 224 : 149–168 : 78–82 It is characterized by the use of the courtyard as a central space and basic unit around which other halls and rooms were organized. Courtyards typically had water features at their centre, such as a reflective pool or a fountain. Decoration was focused on the inside of buildings and was executed primarily with tile mosaics on lower walls and carved stucco on the upper walls. Geometric patterns, vegetal motifs, and calligraphy were the main types of decorative motifs. Additionally, "stalactite"-like sculpting, known as muqarnas, was used for three-dimensional features like vaulted ceilings, particularly during the reign of Muhammad V and after.: 164–167
Even after Muslim territories were conquered by the Christian kingdoms, Andalusi art and architecture continued to appear for many years as a prestigious style under new Christian patrons employing Muslim craftsmen, becoming what is known as the Mudéjar style (named after the Mudéjars or Muslims under Christian rule). Numerous examples are found in the early churches of Toledo (e.g. the Church of San Román, 13th century) and in the cities of Aragon such as Zaragoza and Teruel.: 361–368 Among the most famous examples is the Alcázar of Seville, the former Abbadid and Almohad palace redeveloped by Christian rulers such as Peter of Castile, who in 1364 started adding new Moorish-style sections with the help of Muslim craftsmen from Granada and Toledo.: 171 Some surviving 13th and 14th-century Jewish synagogues were also built (or rebuilt) in Mudéjar style under Christian rule, such as the Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca in Toledo (rebuilt in its current form circa 1250), the Synagogue of Córdoba (1315), and the Synagogue of El Tránsito (1355–1357). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus |
Cosmology in the Muslim world | The Hellenistic Greek astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia, who advocated a heliocentric model in the 2nd century BC, wrote a work that was later translated into Arabic. A fragment of his work has survived only in Arabic translation, which was later referred to by the Persian philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925).
In the late ninth century, Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (Albumasar) developed a planetary model which some have interpreted as a heliocentric model. This is due to his orbital revolutions of the planets being given as heliocentric revolutions rather than geocentric revolutions, and the only known planetary theory in which this occurs is in the heliocentric theory. His work on planetary theory has not survived, but his astronomical data was later recorded by al-Hashimi, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and al-Sijzi.
In the early eleventh century, al-Biruni had met several Indian scholars who believed in a rotating Earth. In his Indica, he discusses the theories on the Earth's rotation supported by Brahmagupta and other Indian astronomers, while in his Canon Masudicus, al-Biruni writes that Aryabhata's followers assigned the first movement from east to west to the Earth and a second movement from west to east to the fixed stars. Al-Biruni also wrote that al-Sijzi also believed the Earth was moving and invented an astrolabe called the "Zuraqi" based on this idea:
"I have seen the astrolabe called Zuraqi invented by Abu Sa'id Sijzi. I liked it very much and praised him a great deal, as it is based on the idea entertained by some to the effect that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky. By my life, it is a problem difficult of solution and refutation. [...] For it is the same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the sky. For, in both cases, it does not affect the Astronomical Science. It is just for the physicist to see if it is possible to refute it."
In his Indica, al-Biruni briefly refers to his work on the refutation of heliocentrism, the Key of Astronomy, which is now lost:
"The most prominent of both modern and ancient astronomers have deeply studied the question of the moving earth, and tried to refute it. We, too, have composed a book on the subject called Miftah 'ilm al-hai'ah (Key of Astronomy), in which we think we have surpassed our predecessors, if not in the words, at all events in the matter." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology_in_the_Muslim_world |
Algerian War | Recurrent cabinet crises focused attention on the inherent instability of the Fourth Republic and increased the misgivings of the army and of the pieds-noirs that the security of Algeria was being undermined by party politics. Army commanders chafed at what they took to be inadequate and incompetent political initiatives by the government in support of military efforts to end the rebellion. The feeling was widespread that another debacle like that of Indochina in 1954 was in the offing and that the government would order another precipitate pullout and sacrifice French honor to political expediency. Many saw in de Gaulle, who had not held office since 1946, the only public figure capable of rallying the nation and giving direction to the French government.
After his time as governor general, Soustelle returned to France to organize support for de Gaulle's return to power, while retaining close ties to the army and the pieds-noirs. By early 1958, he had organized a coup d'état, bringing together dissident army officers and pieds-noirs with sympathetic Gaullists. An army junta under General Massu seized power in Algiers on the night of May 13, thereafter known as the May 1958 crisis. General Salan assumed leadership of a Committee of Public Safety formed to replace the civil authority and pressed the junta's demands that de Gaulle be named by French president René Coty to head a government of national unity invested with extraordinary powers to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria."
On May 24, French paratroopers from the Algerian corps landed on Corsica, taking the French island in a bloodless action. Subsequently, preparations were made in Algeria for Operation Resurrection, which had as its objectives the seizure of Paris and the removal of the French government. Resurrection was to be implemented in the event of one of three following scenarios: Were de Gaulle not approved as leader of France by the parliament; were de Gaulle to ask for military assistance to take power; or if it seemed that communist forces were making any move to take power in France. De Gaulle was approved by the French parliament on May 29, by 329 votes against 224, 15 hours before the projected launch of Operation Resurrection. This indicated that the Fourth Republic by 1958 no longer had any support from the French Army in Algeria and was at its mercy even in civilian political matters. This decisive shift in the balance of power in civil-military relations in France in 1958, and the threat of force, was the primary factor in the return of de Gaulle to power in France. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War |
French Algeria | On 5 July 1830, Hussein Dey, regent of Algiers, signed the act of capitulation to the Régence, which committed General de Bourmont and France "not to infringe on the freedom of people of all classes and their religion ."
Muslims still remain submitted to the Muslim Customary law and Jews to the Law of Moses; all of them remained linked to the Ottoman Empire.
That same year and the same month, the July Revolution ended the Bourbon Restoration and began the July Monarchy in which Louis Philippe I was King of the French.
The royal "Ordonnance du 22 juillet 1834" organized general government and administration of the French territories in North Africa and is usually considered as an effective annexation of Algeria by France; the annexation made all people legally linked to France and broke the legal link between people and the Ottoman Empire, because International law made annexation systematically induce a régnicoles. This made people living in Algeria "French subjects ," without providing them any way to become French nationals. However, since it was not positive law, this text did not introduce legal certainty on this topic.
This was confirmed by the French Constitution of 1848
As French rule in Algeria expanded, particularly under Thomas-Robert Bugeaud (1841–48), discriminatory governance became increasingly formalised. In 1844, Bugeaud formalised a system of European settlements along the coast, under civil government, with Arab/Berber areas in the interior under military governance. An important feature of French rule was cantonnement, whereby tribal land that was supposedly unused was seized by the state, which enabled French colonists to expand their landholdings, and pushed indigenous people onto more marginal land and made them more vulnerable to drought; this was extended under the governance of Bugeaud's successor, Jacques Louis Randon.
A case in 1861 questioned the legal status of people in Algeria. On 28 November 1861, the conseil de l'ordre des avocats du barreau d'Alger (Bar association of Algiers) declined to recognise Élie Énos (or Aïnos), a Jew from Algiers, since only French citizens could become lawyers. On 24 February 1862 (appeal) and on 15 February 1864 (cassation), judges reconsidered this, deciding that people could display the qualities of being French (without having access to the full rights of a French citizen). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Algeria |
Mathematics in the medieval Islamic world | The influence of medieval Arab-Islamic mathematics to the rest of the world is wide and profound, in both the realm of science and mathematics. The knowledge of the Arabs went into the western world through Spain and Sicily during the translation movement. "The Moors (western Mohammedans from that part of North Africa once known as Mauritania) crossed over into Spain early in the seventh century, bringing with them the cultural resources of the Arab world". In the 13th century, King Alfonso X of Castile established the Toledo School of Translators, in the Kingdom of Castile, where scholars translated numerous scientific and philosophical works from Arabic into Latin. The translations included Islamic contributions to trigonometry, which helps European mathematicians and astronomers in their studies. European scholars such as Gerard of Cremona (1114–1187) played a key role in translating and disseminating these works, thus making them accessible to a wider audience. Cremona is said to have translated into Latin "no fewer than 90 complete Arabic texts." European mathematicians, building on the foundations laid by Islamic scholars, further developed practical trigonometry for applications in navigation, cartography, and celestial navigation, thus pushing forward the age of discovery and scientific revolution. The practical applications of trigonometry for navigation and astronomy became increasingly important during the Age of Exploration.
Al-Battānī is one of the islamic mathematicians who made great contributions to the development of trigonometry. He "innovated new trigonometric functions, created a table of cotangents, and made some formulas in spherical trigonometry." These discoveries, together with his astronomical works which are praised for their accuracy, greatly advanced astronomical calculations and instruments.
Al-Khayyām (1048–1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet, known for his work on algebra and geometry, particularly his investigations into the solutions of cubic equations. He was "the first in history to elaborate a geometrical theory of equations with degrees ≤ 3", and has great influence on the work of Descartes, a French mathematician who is often regarded as the founder of analytical geometry. Indeed, "to read Descartes' s Géométrie is to look upstream towards al-Khayyām and al-Ṭūsī; and downstream towards Newton, Leibniz, Cramer, Bézout and the Bernoulli brothers". Numerous problems that appear in "La Géométrie" (Geometry) have foundations that date back to al-Khayyām.
Abū Kāmil (Arabic: أبو كامل شجاع بن أسلم بن محمد بن شجاع, also known as Al-ḥāsib al-miṣrī—lit. "The Egyptian Calculator") (c. 850 – c. 930), was studied algebra following the author of Algebra, al-Khwārizmī. His Book of Algebra (Kitāb fī al-jabr wa al-muqābala) is "essentially a commentary on and elaboration of al-Khwārizmī's work; in part for that reason and in part for its own merit, the book enjoyed widespread popularity in the Muslim world". It contains 69 problems, which is more than al-Khwārizmī who had 40 in his book. Abū Kāmil's Algebra plays a significant role in shaping the trajectory of Western mathematics, particularly in its impact on the works of the Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, widely recognized as Fibonacci. In his Liber Abaci (1202), Fibonacci extensively incorporated ideas from Arabic mathematicians, using approximately 29 problems from Book of Algebra with scarce modification. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world |
Durrani Empire | The Mughal power in northern India had been declining after the death of Emperor Aurangzeb, who died in 1707. In 1751–52, the Ahamdiya treaty was signed between the Marathas and Mughals, when Balaji Bajirao was the Peshwa. Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled virtually the whole of India from their capital at Pune and the Mughal rule was restricted only to Delhi (the Mughals remained the nominal heads of Delhi). Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Ahmad Shah sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted. To counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao. He defeated the Rohillas and Afghan garrisons in Punjab and succeeded in ousting Timur Shah and his court from India and brought Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and other subahs on the Indian side of Attock under Maratha rule. Thus, upon his return to Kandahar in 1757, Ahmad was forced to return to India and face the formidable attacks of the Maratha Confederacy.
Ahmad Shah declared a jihad (or Islamic holy war) against the Marathas, and warriors from various Afghan tribes joined his army, including the Baloch people under the command of Khan of Kalat Mir Nasir I of Kalat. Suba Khan Tanoli (Zabardast Khan) was selected as army chief of all military forces. Early skirmishes were followed by victory for the Afghans against the much larger Maratha garrisons in Northwest India and by 1759 Ahmad Shah and his army had reached Lahore and were poised to confront the Marathas. Ahmad Shah Durrani was famous for winning wars much larger than his army. By 1760, the Maratha groups had coalesced into a big enough army under the command of Sadashivrao Bhau. Once again, Panipat was the scene of a confrontation between two warring contenders for control of northern India. The Third Battle of Panipat (14 January 1761), fought between largely Muslim and largely Hindu armies was waged along a twelve-kilometer front. Despite decisively defeating the Marathas, what might have been Ahmad Shah's peaceful control of his domains was disrupted by many challenges. As far as losses are concerned, Afghans too suffered heavily in the Third Battle of Panipat. This weakened his grasp over Punjab which fell to the rising Sikh misls. There were rebellions in the north in the region of Bukhara. The Durranis decisively defeated the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat on 14 January 1761. The defeat at Panipat resulted in heavy losses for the Marathas, and was a huge setback for Peshwa Balaji Rao. He received the news of the defeat of Panipat on 24 January 1761 at Bhilsa, while leading a reinforcement force. Besides several important generals, he had lost his own son Vishwasrao in the Battle of Panipat. He died on 23 June 1761, and was succeeded by his younger son Madhav Rao I. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrani_Empire |
Knafeh | A common story is that the dish was created, and prescribed by doctors, to satisfy the hunger of caliphs during Ramadan. The story is variously said to have happened in Fatimid Egypt, or in the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus, Syria, where Levantine dessert makers prepared it for Mu'awiya I,
to reduce hunger during fasting in Ramadan. It is also reported to have been mentioned in writing as early as the tenth century, and to be of Fatimid origin. However, dishes mentioned in historical texts are not necessarily the same as the modern versions of kanafeh.
Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's tenth century Kitab al-Tabikh (Book of Dishes), a collection of Arabic recipes and food advice of the Abbasid caliphs, mentions neither the word kunāfa, nor a description of the dish as it is known today. However, it does feature a chapter on desserts made with the related qatāyif, meaning crêpes, from which the Turkish word kadayıf and Greek word kataïfi derive. In one recipe, qatāyif are stuffed with nuts, deep-fried, and topped with honey-sugar syrup, which is essentially unchanged in today's version. Also described are large thin crêpes resembling fabric, called ruqāq, cooked on a round sheet of metal called a tābaq, layered with fruit, and drenched with sugar.The 13th century anonymous Kitab al tabikh fi-l-Maghrib wa-l-Andalus (Book of Dishes from Maghreb and Al-Andalus) uses the word 'kunāfa' to describe a crêpe made with thin batter on an Indian pan or "mirror" (the tābaq), and says it is equivalent to ruqāq. It also gives a recipe for Abbasid Qatāyif (the crêpes being called musahhada in Al-Andalus), which uses the same batter, but the kunāfa is made thinner, "like a fine tissue". It gives a number of dessert recipes for kunāfa, where the crêpes are served layered with fresh cheese, baked, and topped with honey and rose syrup; or cut up into shreds like rose leaves and cooked with honey, nuts, sugar, and rosewater.
Ibn al-Jazari gives an account of a 13th-century market inspector who rode through Damascus at night, ensuring the quality of kunāfa, qatā'if, and other foods associated with Ramadan, during the Mamluk period.
In the later Middle Ages, a new technique was created, with thin batter being dripped onto the metal sheet from a perforated container, creating hair-like strings. A mid-15th century Ottoman Turkish translation of Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi's Kitab al-Tabikh added several new contemporary recipes, including one for this kadayif, though it does not specify where it originated. This became the basis for the modern kunafa/kanafeh. It is fried together with butter and fillings or toppings such as nuts, sweetened cheese, or clotted cream, and mixed with rosewater and sugar. The pastry spread from the Arab lands to neighboring countries including Iran and Greece, and to Turkey where the string pastry itself is known as tel kadayıf ("string crêpes"), also used in related pastries such as dolma kadayif. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knafeh |
Egypt | In 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in alliance with the Central Empires; Khedive Abbas II (who had grown increasingly hostile to the British in preceding years) decided to support the motherland in war. Following such decision, the British forcibly removed him from power and replaced him with his brother Hussein Kamel. Hussein Kamel declared Egypt's independence from the Ottoman Empire, assuming the title of Sultan of Egypt. Shortly following independence, Egypt was declared a protectorate of the United Kingdom.
After World War I, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement to a majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on 8 March 1919, the country arose in its first modern revolution. The revolt led the UK government to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt's independence on 22 February 1922. Following independence from the United Kingdom, Sultan Fuad I assumed the title of King of Egypt; despite being nominally independent, the Kingdom was still under British military occupation and the UK still had great influence over the state. The new government drafted and implemented a constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary system. The nationalist Wafd Party won a landslide victory in the 1923–1924 election and Saad Zaghloul was appointed as the new Prime Minister. In 1936, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded and British troops withdrew from Egypt, except for the Suez Canal. The treaty did not resolve the question of Sudan, which, under the terms of the existing Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement of 1899, stated that Sudan should be jointly governed by Egypt and Britain, but with real power remaining in British hands.
Britain used Egypt as a base for Allied operations throughout the region, especially the battles in North Africa against Italy and Germany. Its highest priorities were control of the Eastern Mediterranean, and especially keeping the Suez Canal open for merchant ships and for military connections with India and Australia. When the war began in September 1939, Egypt declared martial law and broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. It broke diplomatic relations with Italy in 1940, but never declared war, even when the Italian army invaded Egypt. The Egyptian army did no fighting. In June 1940 the King dismissed Prime Minister Aly Maher, who got on poorly with the British. A new coalition Government was formed with the Independent Hassan Pasha Sabri as Prime Minister.
Following a ministerial crisis in February 1942, the ambassador Sir Miles Lampson, pressed Farouk to have a Wafd or Wafd-coalition government replace Hussein Sirri Pasha's government. On the night of 4 February 1942, British troops and tanks surrounded Abdeen Palace in Cairo and Lampson presented Farouk with an ultimatum. Farouk capitulated, and Nahhas formed a government shortly thereafter.
Most British troops were withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947 (although the British army maintained a military base in the area), but nationalist, anti-British feelings continued to grow after the War. Anti-monarchy sentiments further increased following the disastrous performance of the Kingdom in the First Arab-Israeli War. The 1950 election saw a landslide victory of the nationalist Wafd Party and the King was forced to appoint Mostafa El-Nahas as new Prime Minister. In 1951 Egypt unilaterally withdrew from the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and ordered all remaining British troops to leave the Suez Canal.
As the British refused to leave their base around the Suez Canal, the Egyptian government cut off the water and refused to allow food into the Suez Canal base, announced a boycott of British goods, forbade Egyptian workers from entering the base and sponsored guerrilla attacks. On 24 January 1952, Egyptian guerrillas staged a fierce attack on the British forces around the Suez Canal, during which the Egyptian Auxiliary Police were observed helping the guerrillas. In response, on 25 January, General George Erskine sent out British tanks and infantry to surround the auxiliary police station in Ismailia. The police commander called the Interior Minister, Fouad Serageddin, Nahas's right-hand man, to ask if he should surrender or fight. Serageddin ordered the police to fight "to the last man and the last bullet". The resulting battle saw the police station levelled and 43 Egyptian policemen killed together with 3 British soldiers. The Ismailia incident outraged Egypt. The next day, 26 January 1952 was "Black Saturday", as the anti-British riot was known, that saw much of downtown Cairo which the Khedive Ismail the Magnificent had rebuilt in the style of Paris, burned down. Farouk blamed the Wafd for the Black Saturday riot, and dismissed Nahas as prime minister the next day. He was replaced by Aly Maher Pasha.
On 22–23 July 1952, the Free Officers Movement, led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, launched a coup d'état (Egyptian Revolution of 1952) against the king. Farouk I abdicated the throne to his son Fouad II, who was, at the time, a seven-month-old baby. The Royal Family left Egypt some days later and the Council of Regency, led by Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim was formed. The council, however, held only nominal authority and the real power was actually in the hands of the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Naguib and Nasser. Popular expectations for immediate reforms led to the workers' riots in Kafr Dawar on 12 August 1952. Following a brief experiment with civilian rule, the Free Officers abrogated the monarchy and the 1923 constitution and declared Egypt a republic on 18 June 1953. Naguib was proclaimed as president, while Nasser was appointed as the new Prime Minister. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt |
2012–2013 Egyptian protests | On 2 June, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison, for complicity in the killings of protesters by police, during the revolution that eventually toppled him, in 2011. However, the judge also found him not guilty, on corruption charges. This, and the fact that he had not received the death penalty, led numerous protesters to immediately take to the streets, directly after the verdict was announced.
On 14 June, Egypt's Constitutional Court ruled that a law preventing members of Hosni Mubarak's former government from running for President was unconstitutional, therefore letting Ahmed Shafik remain in the presidential race. The court also ruled that the mainly Islamist-led Parliament, should be dissolved. Both of these verdicts also led to protests, as well.
On 16–17 June, the second round of voting in the presidential elections took place. Both candidates claimed that they had won the election, and each accused the other of cheating. The results of the presidential election were initially going to be officially announced, on Thursday, 21 June. However, this date was later postponed.
On 18 June, the Muslim Brotherhood announced that its candidate, Morsi, had won the election. On the same day, the ruling military junta, (which is scheduled to transfer power to the newly elected President on 30 June), made a statement, in which they severely restricted the powers, of the Presidency. This led to huge protests in Tahrir Square, the biggest since those that eventually ousted Mubarak, more than a year earlier. Many of the protesters were members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
On 19 June, the protests continued. Protesters rallied in Tahrir Square in Cairo, accusing the SCAF of planning a coup, and demanding that it back down.
The results of the presidential election were officially announced on 24 June 2012. It was announced that Morsi had narrowly beat Shafik, gaining 52% of the votes, while Shafik got 48% of them. Right after the announcement, Morsi supporters in Tahrir Square celebrated their victory. It has also been noted that this is the first time since Hosni Mubarak's resignation, on 11 February 2011, that celebrations of this magnitude have occurred, in Egypt. However, even after the results of the presidential election were announced, numerous protesters still remained, in Tahrir Square. They were protesting the apparent power grab by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
On 30 June 2012, Morsi was sworn in as the fifth President of Egypt. This marked the first time in Egypt's history that a civilian president has been elected by the people. In the past, all of the other presidents were either from the military or had a military background.
The inauguration of Morsi led to the third wave of the revolution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Egyptian_protests |
Bartella | On August 31, 2004, three girls from Bartella were slaughtered while returning home from their work at a hospital in Mosul where they worked. On November 19, 2004, two brothers from Bartella were killed while at work when a mortar shell fell on the shop they worked at in Mosul market.
On December 8, 2004, Dr. Ra'ad Augustine Qoryaqos, one of Bartella's notables and a successful surgeon who worked as a professor at the College of Medicine in University of Anbar, was murdered in Ramadi. A group of three terrorists stormed his clinic while he was checking on his patients, shot and left him bleeding. An operation later failed to save his life. Dr. Qoryaqos left behind his wife and two children.
On August 10, 2009, a pair of large flatbed trucks packed with bombs exploded simultaneously shortly after dawn, destroying a Shabak village known as Khazna, about 16 km (10 mi) east of Mosul and a few kilometres away from Bartella. The blast shattered windows at many homes in Bartella.
On March 28, 2013, and during the passion week of Easter, a car bomb parked downtown not far from street of Bartella went off in the early hours of that day killing one local resident.
On August 3, 2014, many families from Bartella left the city to Erbil, Ankawa and Shekhan due to attacks by ISIL fighters. The Peshmerga forces were fighting them to retake ISIL-controlled Gogjali district west of Bartella.
On August 6, 2014, Peshmerga forces guarding the city ordered the remaining residents to leave, and pulled back to Erbil at around 8:30 pm. Over the night, the city was almost completely empty of its predominately Christian Assyrian residents. At around 4:30 am on August 7, the whole city was totally taken by ISIL militants in a bullet-less fall. On August 8, they burned liquor stores, looted houses and food stores, hung their flags on the church walls, pulled down the crosses and demanded the few remaining Christian locals of either converting to Islam, staying in the city and paying a yearly tax of $200, or facing "death by the sword" if refused to convert or pay.
In late August and early September 2014, it was reported that three residents of the few remaining Christian Assyrians, died. One was disabled, the other due to illness and old age and the third one was tortured then killed after he refused to convert to Islam.
In mid-September 2014, the 12 remaining residents managed to escape by faking conversion.
On October 20, 2016, as part of the Iraqi government offensive to retake Mosul, the Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units and Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) liberated Bartella from ISIL control.
On December 24, 2016, the first post-liberation Christmas Eve mass was held at Mart Shmony Church. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartella |
OPEC Fund for International Development | The OPEC Fund's operations are organized into 10 focus areas:
Agriculture:Funding has helped boost crop and livestock production, as well as improve rural infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and storage facilities for animal fodder. Support has also been extended to help promote agricultural research.
Education:The OPEC Fund's financing has helped construct and rehabilitate schools, purchase equipment and teaching materials, as well as provide teacher training. The OPEC Fund has also sponsored the attendance of participants from developing countries to various conferences and workshops.
Energy:A lead partner in the UN's Sustainable Energy for All initiative, the OPEC Fund has supported energy projects ranging from infrastructure and equipment provision to research and capacity building.
Financial:Support to this sector has primarily been the channeling of funds to Micro-, small- and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) via financial intermediaries such as national and regional development banks, commercial banks and leasing companies.
Health:Support has included construction and modernization of hospitals, health clinics and other infrastructure. Capacity building and support to primary healthcare programs has also been extended. The OPEC Fund is also an active partner in the global fight against HIV/AIDS through a special grant program.
Industry:The OPEC Fund's funding has benefited all sub-sectors, including building materials, steel, fertilizers and chemicals.
Multisectoral:This includes undertakings that cut across more than one sector and often supports the activities of Social Investment Funds, whose projects are usually demand-driven at a local level and have a strong element of community participation.
Telecommunications:The majority of funding to this sector was extended under OPEC Fund's private sector facility, with financing going to mobile network operators in Africa and Asia.
Transportation:The OPEC Fund's support has been consistently high to this sector and ranges from construction and rehabilitation of roads, seaports and airports, to railways, inland waterways and urban mass transit.
Water and Sanitation:The OPEC Fund has helped finance a wide range of operations to help provide clean drinking water and safe sanitation systems. These range from large-scale water storage, treatment and distribution projects to village pumps and school latrines, as well as to schemes to optimize water use in arid regions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC_Fund_for_International_Development |
Farouk of Egypt | Upon his coronation, the 16-year-old King Farouk made a public radio address to the nation, the first time a sovereign of Egypt had ever spoken directly to his people in such a way:And if it is God's will to lay on my shoulders at such an early age the responsibility of kingship, I on my part appreciate the duties that will be mine, and I am prepared for all sacrifices in the cause of my duty. ... My noble people, I am proud of you and your loyalty and am confident in the future as I am in God. Let us work together. We shall succeed and be happy. Long live the Motherland!
As Farouk was extremely popular with the Egyptian people, it was decided by the Prime Minister, Aly Maher, that Farouk should not return to Britain as that would be unpopular, though one of the regents, Prince Muhammad Ali, had wanted Farouk to keep trying to be admitted on a full-time basis to the Royal Military Academy as a means of getting him out of the country. Since under Egyptian law women could not inherit the throne, Farouk's cousin Prince Muhammad Ali was next in line to the throne. Prince Muhammad Ali was to spend the next 16 years scheming to depose Farouk so he could become king. Egypt was in the process of negotiating a treaty that would reduce some of the British privileges in Egypt and make the country more independent in exchange for keeping Egypt in the British sphere of influence. The ambitions of Benito Mussolini to dominate the Mediterranean led the Wafd—traditionally the anti-British party—to want to keep the British presence in Egypt, at least as long as Mussolini kept calling the Mediterranean Mare Nostrum. For both the Wafd and the British, it was convenient to keep Farouk in Egypt so that when he signed the new Anglo-Egyptian treaty, it would not be seen as under duress as it would be if Farouk was living in Britain. Sir Miles Lampson believed he together with assorted other British officials like the king's tutor, Edward Ford, could mould Farouk into an Anglophile. Lampson's plans were derailed when it emerged that Farouk was more interested in duck-hunting than Ford's lectures and that the king had "bragged" he would "have the hell" with the British, saying they had humiliated him for long enough.
The fact that Farouk had dismissed all of the British servants employed by his father, while keeping the Italian servants, suggested he had inherited Fuad's Italophilia. Farouk especially resented Lampson's attempts to set himself up as a surrogate father, finding him impossibly patronising and rude, complaining that at one moment Lampson would address him as a king and the next moment would call him to his face a "naughty boy". Lampson was 55 when Farouk acceded to the throne and he never learned how to treat the teenage Farouk as an equal. The official was charmed by Egypt, which he regarded as a wondrous exotic land, but as his Arabic was not particularly good, his contacts with ordinary Egyptians were only on a superficial level. Lampson was fluent in French and his social contracts were almost entirely with the Egyptian elite. Lampson wrote in his diary about the death of King Fuad: "Slippery customer though he was, he was an immense factor in the situation here and... we could always in the last resort get him to act in any particular line that we wished". About Farouk, Lampson wrote he did not expect to have "a young immature King on our hands. I frankly don't know quite how that problem is going to be handled".
Farouk was enamored of the glamorous royal lifestyle. Although he already had thousands of acres of land, dozens of palaces and hundreds of cars, the youthful king often traveled to Europe for grand shopping sprees, earning the ire of many of his subjects. It is said that he ate 600 oysters a week. His personal vehicle was a red 1947 Bentley Mark VI, with coachwork by Figoni et Falaschi; he dictated that, other than the military jeeps which made up the rest of his entourage, no other cars were to be painted red. In 1951, he bought the pear-shaped 94-carat Star of the East diamond and a fancy-coloured oval-cut diamond from jeweller Harry Winston.
He was most popular in his early years, and the nobility largely celebrated him. For example, during the accession of the young King Farouk, "the Abaza family had solicited palace authorities to permit the royal train to stop briefly in their village so that the king could partake of refreshments offered in a large, magnificently ornamented tent the family had erected in the train station." The Chief Accountant to Farouk was Yadidya Israel, who was secretly working with the Free Officers movement that removed the King in 1952, as was the Abaza family's own Wagih Abaza, who later became governor of six governorates in post-Farouk Egypt.
Farouk's accession initially was encouraging for the populace and nobility, due to his youth and Egyptian roots through his mother Nazli Sabri. Standing 6'0 tall and extremely handsome in his teenage years, Farouk was viewed as a sex symbol in his early years, making the cover of Time magazine as a leader to watch while Life magazine in article on him called the Abdeen Palace "possibly the most magnificent royal place in the world" and Farouk "the very model of a young Muslim gentleman". However, the situation was not the same with some Egyptian politicians and elected government officials, with whom Farouk quarreled frequently, despite their loyalty in principle to his throne. There was also the issue of the British influence in the Egyptian government, which Farouk viewed with disdain. Farouk's accession had changed the dynamic of Egyptian politics from being a struggle of an unpopular king vs. the popular Wafd party as it was under his father to that of a popular Wafd vs. an even more popular king. The Wafd Party, led by Nahas Pasha, had been the most popular party in Egypt since it had been founded in 1919, and the Wafd leaders felt threatened by Farouk's popularity with ordinary Egyptians. Right from the start of Farouk's reign, the Wafd—who claimed to speak alone for Egypt's masses—saw Farouk as a threat and Nahas Pasha worked constantly to clip the king's power, confirming the prejudices that Farouk had inherited from his father against the Wafd. When Nahas and the other Wafd leaders traveled to London to sign the Anglo-Egyptian treaty in August 1936, they stopped over in Switzerland to hold discussions with former Khedive Abbas II about how best to depose Farouk and put Abbas back on the throne.
The dominant figure in the Wafd was Makram Ebeid, the man widely considered to be the most intelligent Egyptian politician of the interwar era. Ebeid was a Coptic Christian, which made it unacceptable for him to be prime minister of Muslim majority Egypt, and so he exercised power via his protege Nahas, who was the official party leader. Leaders in the Wafd like Ali Maher, opposed to Ebeid and Nahas, looked to Farouk as a rival source of patronage and power. Both Ebeid and Nahas disliked Maher, regarding him as an intriguer and an opportunist, and found a further reason to dislike him even more when Maher became Farouk's favorite political adviser. The nationalistic Wafd Party was the most powerful political machine in Egypt, and when the Wafd was in power, it tended to be very corrupt and nepotistic. Those excluded from opportunities for corruption, like Maher Pasha, made much of the corruption, in particular the baleful influence of Nahas Pasha's dominating wife (who insisted on giving high government jobs to members of her family, no matter how unqualified they were). Though the Wafd Party had been founded in 1919 as the anti-British party, the fact that Nahas Pasha championed the 1936 treaty as the best way of keeping Mussolini from conquering Egypt as he had done Ethiopia, paradoxically led Lampson to favor Nahas and the Wafd as the most pro-British party, in turn leading opponents of the Wafd to attack them for "selling out" by signing a treaty which allowed the British to keep their garrisons in Egypt. As Farouk could not stand the overbearing Lampson, and saw the Wafd as his enemies, the king naturally aligned himself with the anti-Wafd factions and those who saw the treaty as a "sell out". Lampson personally favored deposing Farouk and putting his cousin Prince Muhammad Ali on the throne in order to keep the Wafd in power, but feared that a coup would destroy the popular legitimacy of Nahas.
Despite the regency council, Farouk was determined to exercise his royal prerogatives. When Farouk asked for a new railroad station to be built outside of the Montazah palace, the council refused under the grounds that station was only used twice a year by the royal family, when they arrived at the Montazah palace to escape the summer heat in Cairo and when they returned to Cairo in the fall. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Farouk called out his servants and led them to demolish the station, forcing the regency council to approve building a new station. To counterbalance the Wafd, Farouk from the time he arrived back in Egypt started to use Islam as a political weapon, always attending the Friday prayers at the local mosques, donating to Islamic charities, and courting the Muslim Brotherhood, the only group capable of rivaling the Wafd in terms of the ability to mobilize the masses. Farouk was known in his early years as the "pious king" as unlike his predecessors he went out of his way to be seen as a devout Muslim. The Egyptian historian Laila Morsy wrote that Nahas never really tried to reach an understanding with the Palace, and treated Farouk as an enemy from the start, seeing him as a threat to the Wafd. The Wafd ran a powerful patronage machine in rural Egypt and the enthusiastic response of the fellaheen to the king as he threw gold coins at them during his tours of the countryside was viewed by Nahas as a major threat. Nahas sought to prevent the king from "parading" himself before the masses, claiming that the king's royal tours cost the government too much money, and as the Wafd was a secularist party, charged that Farouk's overt religiosity violated the constitution. However, the attacks by the secularist Wafd on Farouk for being too pious a Muslim estranged conservative Muslim opinion who rallied in defense of the "pious king". As the Coptic Christian minority tended to vote as a bloc for the Wafd and many prominent Wafd leaders like Ebeid were Copts, the Wafd was widely seen as the "Coptic party". The aggressive defense by Nahas of secularism as a core principle of Egyptian life and his attacks against the king as a danger for being a devout Muslim led to a backlash and the charge that secularism was merely a device for allowing the Coptic Christian minority to dominate Egypt at the expense of the Muslim Arab majority.
Sir Edward Ford, who served as the king's tutor, described him as a relaxed, gregarious and easy-going teenager whose first act upon meeting him in Alexandria was to take him swimming in the Mediterranean. However, Ford also described Farouk as incapable of learning and "totally incapable of concentration". Whenever Ford began a lesson, Farouk would immediately find a way to end it by insisting that he take Ford out for a drive to see the Egyptian countryside. In an interview in 1990, Ford described Farouk as: "He was half a private schoolboy of nine or ten and half a sophisticated young man of twenty-three, able to sit next to a great man like Lord Rutherford and impress him a great deal, usually by bluffing. He did have a very good eye, a royal eye. In England, he was able to spot the most valuable rare book in the Trinity College library in Cambridge. It may have been pure luck. But it impressed everyone. And he spoke wonderful English and Arabic". In turn, Farouk explained to Ford why upper-class Egyptian men were still using the titles left over from the Ottoman Empire such as pasha, bey and effendi, which Ford learned that a pasha was equivalent to being an aristocrat, a bey was equivalent to a title of knighthood and an effendi to being an esquire. Ford wrote in his notebook: "A pasha may perhaps be defined as a person who looks important, a bey thinks himself important, an effendi hopes to be important". When Farouk went on his tour of Upper Egypt in January 1937, going down the Nile on the royal yacht Kassed el Kheir, Ford complained that Farouk never asked for a single lesson, as he was more interested in watching the latest films from Hollywood. Despite the fact that Upper Egypt was the poorest region in Egypt, various mudirs (governors) and sheikhs held camel races, gymnastic events, stick boxing matches, banquets and concerts in honor of the king, which led Ford to write of a "record of unrivaled stardom, of which Greta Garbo might well be envious".
On 29 June 1937, Farouk turned 17 under the Islamic lunar calendar, and since in the Islamic world a baby is considered to be one year old at the time of birth, by Muslim standards he was celebrating his 18th birthday. As he was considered 18, he thus attained his majority, and the Regency Council, which had irked Farouk so much, was dissolved. Farouk's coronation, held in Cairo, on 20 July 1937, outdid the coronation of George VI, which had just taken place that May, as Farouk held larger parades and fireworks displays than had taken place in London. For his coronation, Farouk reduced the fares on the Nile steamers and at least two million fellaheen (Egyptian peasants) took advantage of the price cut to attend his coronation in Cairo. Farouk's coronation speech implicitly criticized the land-owning Turco-Circassian elite that he himself was a part of, as Farouk declared: "The poor are not responsible for their poverty but rather the wealthy. Give to the poor what they merit without their asking. A king is a good king when the poor of the land have the right to live, when the sick have the right to be healed, when the timid have the right to be tranquil and when the ignorant have the right to learn". Farouk's coronation speech, which was unexpectedly poetic, was written by his tutor, the poet Ahmed Hassanein, who felt that the king should present himself as the friend of the fellaheen to undercut the populist Wafd Party. Further cementing Farouk's popularity was the announcement made on 24 August 1937, that he was engaged to Safinaz Zulficar, the daughter of an Alexandria judge. Farouk's decision to marry a commoner instead of a member of the Turco-Circassian aristocracy increased his popularity with the Egyptian people.
The marriage of the king and a commoner was presented to the world as matter of romantic love, but in fact the marriage had been arranged by Queen Nazli, who herself was a commoner and did not want her son to marry a princess from the Turco-Circassian elite who would outrank her. Queen Nazli had chosen Zulficar as her daughter-in-law because she was 15 years old and thus presumably could be molded, and came from an upper-middle-class family like herself (Zulficar's mother was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Nazli) and was fluent in French, the language of Egypt's elite. Zulficar's father refused to give permission for the marriage under the grounds that his daughter was 15 and too young to be married, and decided to take a vacation in Beirut. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Farouk phoned the police chief of Alexandria, who arrested Judge Zulficar as he was boarding the ship for Beirut, and the judge was taken to the Montaza Palace. At the Montaza palace, Farouk was waiting and bribed Judge Zulficar into granting permission for the marriage by making him into a pasha. At Salfinaz Zulficar's 16th birthday party, Farouk arrived in his Alfa Romeo automobile to propose marriage, and at the same time renamed her Farida because he believed names that started with F were lucky. (Safinaz is Persian for "pure rose" while Farida is Arabic for "the only one"; Farouk's decision to give his bride an Arabic name appealed to the masses). Farouk gave Farida a cheque for a sum in Egyptian pounds equivalent to $50,000 US dollars as a wedding dowry and a diamond ring worth just as much for the engagement. Outside of the Ras El Tin Palace, when the wedding was announced, 22 people were crushed to death and 140 badly injured when the crowd rushed forward to hear the news.
In the fall of 1937, Farouk dismissed the Wafd government headed by Prime Minister Mostafa El-Nahas and replaced him as Prime Minister with Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha. The immediate issue were Nahas's attempts to dismiss Farouk's chef de cabinet Ali Maher together with Farouk's Italian servants, but the more general issue was who would rule Egypt: the Crown or Parliament? As a number of ministers in the new government were pro-Italian at the same time that Mussolini was increasing the number of Italian troops in Libya, Farouk's move was seen as pro-Italian and anti-British. Lampson delivered what he called a "little lecture" to Farouk, reporting to London: "It will be fatal if the boy [Farouk] comes to think he is invincible and can play any trick he likes. Personally I have always liked him and he certainly has a most remarkable intelligence and courage—one begins to fear almost too much of the latter". At a meeting at the Abdeen Palace in December 1937, where Lampson declared that London was opposed to the Mahmoud government, Lampson reported: "I found him rather baffling to deal with—in extraordinary good humour and apparently taking the whole thing rather flippantly whist at times relapsing into a very 'kingly' attitude". Farouk told Lampson that he didn't care if the Wafd had a majority in Parliament, as he was the king and he wanted a prime minister who would obey him, not Parliament. Lampson ended the meeting by saying Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat ("Those God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad").
On 20 January 1938, Farouk married Farida in a sumptuous public event with Cairo lit up by floodlights and colored lights on the public buildings while boats on the Nile had likewise had colored lights, making the river seem a ribbon of light at night. Farida wore a wedding dress that Farouk had bought her, which was handmade in Paris and cost about $30,000 US dollars. The royal wedding made Farouk even more popular with the Egyptian people, and he dissolved parliament for elections in April 1938 with the full prestige and wealth of the Crown being used to support parties opposed to the Wafd. The prime minister, Nahas Pasha, used the familiar Wafd slogan "The king reigns; he does not rule", but the Wafd suffered a massive defeat in the election. In 1938, Farouk was approached by the Iranian ambassador with a message from Reza Khan, the Shah of Iran, asking that his sister be married to Mohammad Reza, the Crown Prince of Iran. When a group of Iranian emissaries arrived in Cairo bearing gifts from Reza Khan such as a "diamond necklace, diamond brooch, diamond earrings", Farouk was not impressed, taking the Iranian delegation on a tour of his five palaces to show them proper royal splendor and asked if there was anything comparable in Iran. Nonetheless, Farouk agreed in a joint press communique issued with Reza Khan on 26 May 1938, that Princess Fawzia would marry Crown Prince Mohammad Reza, who first learned that he was now engaged to Fawzia when he read the press release.
Farouk broke with Muslim tradition by taking Queen Farida everywhere with him, and letting her go unveiled. On 17 November 1938, Farouk became a father when Farida gave birth to Princess Farial, a considerable disappointment as Farouk wanted a son, all the more because he knew his cousin, Prince Muhammad Ali, was scheming to take the throne. In March 1939, Farouk sent the royal yacht Mahroussa to Iran to pick up the Crown Prince. On 15 March 1939, Mohammad Reza married Fawzia in Cairo and afterwards Farouk took his brother-in-law on a tour of Egypt, showing him his five palaces, the Pyramids, Al-Azhar University and other sites in Egypt. In April 1939, the German propaganda minister, Dr. Josef Goebbels, visited Cairo and received a warm welcome from the king. The Danzig crisis which led to World War II later that year had already begun when Farouk met Goebbels, and the meeting caused Lampson much alarm, as he suspected the king was an Axis sympathizer. In August 1939, Farouk appointed his favorite politician, Maher Pasha, prime minister. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_of_Egypt |
Hijab | On 15 March 2004, France passed a law banning "symbols or clothes through which students conspicuously display their religious affiliation" in public primary schools, middle schools, and secondary schools. In the Belgian city of Maaseik, the niqāb has been banned since 2006. On 13 July 2010, France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public. It became the first European country to ban the full-face veil in public places, followed by Belgium, Latvia, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark and some cantons of Switzerland in the following years.
Belgium banned the full-face veil in 2011 in places like parks and on the streets. In September 2013, the electors of the Swiss canton of Ticino voted in favour of a ban on face veils in public areas. In 2016, Latvia and Bulgaria banned the burqa in public places. In October 2017, wearing a face veil became also illegal in Austria. This ban also includes scarves, masks and clown paint that cover faces to avoid discriminating against Muslim dress. In 2016, Bosnia-Herzegovina's supervising judicial authority upheld a ban on wearing Islamic headscarves in courts and legal institutions, despite protests from the Muslim community that constitutes 40% of the country. In 2017, the European Court of Justice ruled that companies were allowed to bar employees from wearing visible religious symbols, including the hijab. However, if the company has no policy regarding the wearing of clothes that demonstrate religious and political ideas, a customer cannot ask employees to remove the clothing item. In 2018, the Danish parliament passed a law banning the full-face veil in public places.
In 2016, more than 20 French towns banned the use of the burqini, a style of swimwear intended to accord with rules of hijab. Dozens of women were subsequently issued fines, with some tickets citing not wearing "an outfit respecting good morals and secularism", and some were verbally attacked by bystanders when they were confronted by the police. Enforcement of the ban also hit beachgoers wearing a wide range of modest attire besides the burqini. Media reported that in one case the police forced a woman to remove part of her clothing on a beach in Nice. The Nice mayor's office denied that she was forced to do so and the mayor condemned what he called the "unacceptable provocation" of wearing such clothes in the aftermath of the Nice terrorist attack.
A team of psychologists in Belgium have investigated, in two studies of 166 and 147 participants, whether the Belgians' discomfort with the Islamic hijab, and the support of its ban from the country's public sphere, is motivated by the defence of the values of autonomy and universalism (which includes equality), or by xenophobia/ethnic prejudice and by anti-religious sentiments. The studies have revealed the effects of subtle prejudice/racism, values (self-enhancement values and security versus universalism), and religious attitudes (literal anti-religious thinking versus spirituality), in predicting greater levels of anti-veil attitudes beyond the effects of other related variables such as age and political conservatism.
In 2019, Austria banned the hijab in schools for children up to ten years of age. The ban was motivated by the equality between men and women and improving social integration with respect to local customs. Parents who send their child to school with a headscarf will be fined 440 euro. The ban was overturned in 2020 by the Austrian Constitutional Court.
In 2019, Staffanstorp Municipality in Sweden banned all veils for school pupils up to sixth grade. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab |
Mount Gerizim | According to the Hebrew Bible, as related in Deuteronomy, when they first entered Canaan, the Israelites celebrated the event with ceremonies of blessings and cursings: the ceremonies of blessings took place on Mount Gerizim, and the cursings on nearby Mount Ebal. The Pulpit Commentary suggests that these mountains were selected probably "because they stand in the center of the Land both from north to south, and from east to west". A commentary in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges argues that "the face of Gerizim, the mount of blessing, is the more fertile; the opposite face of Ebal, the mount of curse, much the more bare", but the Pulpit Commentary states that both Gerizim and Ebal are "equally barren-looking, though neither is wholly destitute of culture and vegetation".
The Masoretic Text says that Moses had also commanded the Israelites to build an altar on Mount Ebal, constructed from natural (rather than cut) stones, to place stones there and whiten them with lime, to make sacrificial offerings on the altar, eat there, and write the Mosaic Law in stones there. The Samaritan Pentateuch, as well as an ancient manuscript of the biblical text found in Qumran, both bring the same excerpt as the Masoretic Text, with the only difference being the name "Gerizim", instead of "Ebal", therefore stating that Moses commanded the building of the altar on Mount Gerizim. Recent work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the oldest surviving manuscripts of the biblical text, further supports the accuracy of the Samaritan Pentateuch's designation of Mount Gerizim, rather than Mount Ebal, as the first location in the Promised Land where Moses commanded an altar to be built.
All versions of the biblical text then have Moses' specifying how the Israelites should split between the two groups that were to pronounce blessings from Mount Gerizim and to pronounce curses from Mount Ebal. The tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin were to be sent to Gerizim, while those of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali were to remain on Ebal.
The altar to God is again mentioned in the Book of Joshua, when, after the Battle of Ai, Joshua built an altar of unhewn stones, the Israelites made peace offerings on it, the law of Moses was written onto the stones, and the Israelites split into the two groups specified in Deuteronomy and pronounced blessings on Mount Gerizim and curses on Mount Ebal, as instructed in the law of Moses. Biblical scholars believe that the sources of the book of Joshua predate those of Deuteronomy, and hence that the order to build the altar and make the inscriptions is likely based on these actions in the sources of Joshua, rather than the other way around, possibly to provide an origin explanation for the events narrated in Joshua.
When Joshua was old and dying, he gathered the people together at Shechem (present-day Nablus) and gave a farewell speech, and set up "a stone as a witness", placing it "next to the sanctuary of Yahweh, under the oak tree", which indicates that a sanctuary to God existed there. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Gerizim |
Human rights in Oman | In 2012, armed security forces arrested Sultan al-Saadi, a social media activist. According to reports, authorities detained him at an unknown location for one month for comments he posted online critical of the government. Authorities previously arrested al-Saadi in 2011 for participating in protests and again in 2012 for posting comments online deemed insulting to Sultan Qaboos.
There were more reports of politically motivated disappearances in the country. In May 2012, security forces detained Ismael al-Meqbali, Habiba al-Hinai and Yaqoub al-Kharusi, human rights activists who were visiting striking oil workers. Authorities released al-Hinai and al-Kharusi shortly after their detention but did not inform al-Meqbali's friends and family of his whereabouts for weeks. Authorities pardoned al-Meqbali in March.
In December 2013, a Yemeni national disappeared in Oman after he was arrested at a checkpoint in Dhofar Governorate. Omani authorities refuse to acknowledge his detention. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
In January 2014, Omani intelligence agents arrested a Bahraini actor and handed him over to the Bahraini authorities on the same day of his arrest. The actor has been subjected to a forced disappearance, his whereabouts and condition remain unknown.
In August 2014, The Omani writer and human rights defender Mohammed Al-Fazari, the founder and editor-in-chief of the e-magazine Muwatin "Citizen", disappeared after going to the police station in the Al-Qurum district of Muscat. For several months the Omani government denied his detention and refused to disclose information about his whereabouts or condition. On 17 July 2015, Al-Fazari left Oman seeking political asylum in UK after a travel ban was issued against him without providing any reasons and after his official documents including his national ID and passport were confiscated for more than 8 months. There were more reports of politically motivated disappearances in the country.
According to Amnesty International annual report 2016, The authorities continued restricting freedom of expression. Many journalists and activists were arrested under penal code provisions which criminalize insulting the Sultan. In March 2015, Talib al-Saeedi, online activist, was arrested for three weeks without charge. Days after, a court sentenced Saeed al-Daroodi, blogger, to one year in prison and a fine; convicting him of “trying to overthrow the government” and “spreading hate”.
According to a report, on 20 December 2015, poet and television producer Nasser al-Badri was summoned by the Police Special Section and detained for 12 days without charge and without trial. The report added that the Omani Observatory for Human Rights said that al-Badri was detained because of tweets he posted criticising Sultan Qaboos and the state of the country's economy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Oman |
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction | Lord Byron's 1816 poem "Darkness", included in The Prisoner of Chillon collection, on the apocalyptic end of the world and one man's survival, was one of the earliest English-language works in this genre. The sun was blotted out, leading to darkness and cold which kills off mankind through famine and ice-age conditions. The poem was influential in the emergence of "the last man" theme which appeared in the works of several poets, such as "The Last Man" by Thomas Campbell (1824) and "The Last Man" (1826) by Thomas Hood, as well as "The Last Man" by Thomas Lovell Beddoes. The year 1816 was known as the Year Without a Summer because Mount Tambora had erupted in the Dutch East Indies in 1815 that emitted sulphur into the atmosphere which lowered the temperature and altered weather patterns throughout the world. This was the source for Byron's poem.
Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (1826) is a continuation of the apocalyptic theme in fiction and is generally recognized as the first major fictional post-apocalyptic story. The plot follows a group of people as they struggle to survive in a plague-infected world. The story's male protagonist struggles to keep his family safe but is inevitably left as the last man alive.
Shelley's novel is predated by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville's French epic prose poem Le Dernier Homme (English: The Last Man [1805]), and this work is sometimes considered the first modern work to depict the end of the world. Published after his death in 1805, de Grainville's work follows the character of Omegarus, the titular "last man," in what is essentially a retelling of the Book of Revelation, combined with themes of the story of Adam and Eve. Unlike most apocalyptic tales, de Grainville's novel approaches the end of the world not as a cautionary tale, or a tale of survival, but as both an inevitable, as well as necessary, step for the spiritual resurrection of mankind.
Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839) follows the conversation between two souls in the afterlife as they discuss the destruction of the world. The destruction was brought about by a comet that removed nitrogen from Earth's atmosphere; this left only oxygen and resulted in a worldwide inferno. Similarly, Giacomo Leopardi's short dialogue "Dialogue between a Goblin and a Gnome" (1824) features a world without the presence of the human beings, most likely because they "violate[d] the laws of nature, and [went] contrary to their welfare".
Richard Jefferies' novel After London (1885) can best be described as genuine post-apocalyptic fiction. After a sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature and the few survivors return to a quasi-medieval way of life. The first chapters consist solely of a description of nature reclaiming England: fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland. The rest of the story is a straightforward adventure/quest set many years later in the wild landscape and society, but the opening chapters set an example for many later science fiction stories.
H.G. Wells wrote several novels that have a post-apocalyptic theme. The Time Machine (1895) has the unnamed protagonist traveling to the year 802,701 A.D. after civilization has collapsed and humanity has split into two distinct species, the elfin Eloi and the brutal Morlocks. Later in the story, the time traveler moves forward to a dying Earth beneath a swollen red sun. The War of the Worlds (1898) depicts an invasion of Earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars. The aliens systematically destroy Victorian England with advanced weaponry mounted on nearly indestructible vehicles. Due to the infamous radio adaptation of the novel by Orson Welles on his show, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, the novel has become one of the best known early apocalyptic works. It has subsequently been reproduced or adapted several times in comic books, film, music, radio programming, television programming, and video games. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction |
Tunisia | After the liberation of Tunisia from the Germans, the French regained control over the government and made participation in a nationalist party illegal once more. Moncef Bey, who was popular amongst Tunisians, was deposed by the French. The French claimed that his removal was due to him being sympathetic to the Axis countries during German occupation, but the real reason is up for debate.
In 1945 after escaping French surveillance, Tunisian nationalist Habib Bourguiba arrived in Cairo. While there, he was able to make contact with the Arab League. Later in 1946, after traveling to other Middle Eastern countries, he made his way to the United States to speak to both the United Nations at their headquarters at Lake Success and U.S. State Department officials in Washington D.C., pleading the case of the Tunisian nationalists.
As part of postwar Tunisia, a new all-Tunisian labor organization was formed, the Union Générale des Travailleurs (UGTT). This was one of the stronger components of the nationalist group Neo-Destour.
Habib Bourguiba made his way to the United States on 13 September 1949. He attended the American Federation of Labor meeting in San Francisco, California. The French were opposed to his presence there, and the US feared political change in North Africa due to the looming presence of possible Soviet Union communist expansion.
Bourguiba continued to plead to foreign leaders when he traveled to Italy on 6 November 1951. His contacts included Alberto Mellini Ponce De León, Mario Toscano, and Licinio Vestri. De León was an old friend of Bourguiba who had helped free him from German captivity, Toscano was the head of the Ufficio Studi e Documentazione in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Vestri was an Africanist scholar. Despite his best efforts, the Italians remained neutral as they did not want to ruin relations with NATO ally France, nor did they want to hamper any possibility of future relations with Tunisia as it served as a key part of the Mediterranean.
The French Resident General in Tunisia, Jean de Hautecloque left Tunis to go to Paris on 25 August 1953, when he was replaced by Pierre Voizard. Voizard had previously been the French Minister to Monaco. A month after his arrival in Tunis on 26 September 1953, Voizard made many changes to ease tensions in Tunisia. He lifted press censorship and freed several political prisoners. He also restored the full powers of civil authorities and raised the state of siege in the Sahel.
On 26 January 1954, Voizard announced that there would soon be new reforms in favor of granting more sovereignty to Tunisians while insuring the interests of the French and French citizens in Tunisia, at the Cercle Republicain d'outre Mer in Paris. The Neo-Destour group was not in favor of these reforms if they themselves were not involved in their creation. They also demanded the freedom of Bourguiba who was imprisoned on the Isle of Galete. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisia |
1958 Lebanon crisis | Eisenhower responded by authorizing Operation Blue Bat on 15 July 1958, in the first application of the Eisenhower Doctrine in which the US announced that it would intervene to protect regimes that it considered to be threatened by international communism. The goal of the operation was to bolster Chamoun's pro-Western Lebanese government from internal opposition and threats from Syria and Egypt. The plan was to occupy and secure Beirut International Airport, a few miles south of the city, and then to secure the port of Beirut and the approaches to the city.
The chain of command for Operation Blue Bat was as follows: the Eisenhower administration at the strategic level; Specified Command, Middle East (SPECCOMME, a 'double-hat' for Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean) at the operational level; the United States Sixth Fleet, with aircraft carriers USS Saratoga, USS Essex and USS Wasp, cruisers USS Des Moines and USS Boston, and two destroyer squadrons, including the USS The Sullivans DD-537, USS Leary, USS Vesole and the USS William M. Wood. At the end of June, Essex and Boston were anchored at Piraeus, Greece, while Des Moines, from which Vice Admiral Charles R. Brown was flying his flag, was at Villefranche-sur-Mer, France. Land forces included the 2nd Provisional Marine Force (Task Force 62) and the United States Army Task Force 201 at the tactical level. Each of these three components influenced Operations Plan 215-58 and its execution.
The operation involved more than 14,000 men, including 8,509 US Army personnel, a contingent from the 1st Airborne Battle Group, 187th Infantry from the 24th Infantry Division and 5,670 officers and men of the United States Marine Corps (the 2nd Provisional Marine Force, of Battalion Landing Teams 1st Battalion, 8th Marines and 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines under Brigadier General Sidney S. Wade). The 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines arrived on 16 July after a 54-hour airlift from Cherry Point, North Carolina. They were supported by a fleet of 70 ships and 40,000 sailors. On 16 July 1958, Admiral James L. Holloway Jr., CINCNELM and CINCSPECCOMME, flew in from London to Beirut airport and boarded USS Taconic from which he commanded the remainder of the operation. The US withdrew its forces on 25 October 1958.
Eisenhower sent the diplomat Robert Daniel Murphy to Lebanon as his personal representative. Murphy played a significant role in convincing both sides of the conflict to reach a compromise by electing the moderate Christian general Fouad Chehab as incoming president, but allowing Chamoun to continue in power until the end of his term, on 22 September.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami formed a national reconciliation government after the end of the 1958 crisis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis |
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Direction générale des affaires indigènes, Archives marocaines [Directorate General of Indigenous Affairs, Moroccan Archives]. Vol. 28. Paris. 1931. Publication de la Direction générale des affaires indigènes (section sociologique){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Audiffret (1821). Oeuvres de Le Sage [Note on the life and works of the sage]. Paris: A.A. Renouard.
Bensoussan, David, ed. (2012). l était une fois le Maroc [Once upon a time in Morocco].
Marchat, Philippe (2013). Le Maroc et les puissances: un empire convoité de 711 à 1942 [Morocco and the powers: a coveted empire from 711 to 1942]. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Abitbol, Michel, ed. (2009). Histore du Maroc [History of Morocco].
Ogot, Bethwell (1998). International Scientific Committee for the drafting of a General History of Africa. UNESCO. ISBN 92-3-202497-7.
Ben Ahmed Ezziâni (1886). Le Maroc de 1631 à 1812 [Morocco between 1631-1812].
Figueras, Garcia; Saint-Cyr, Joulia (1973). Larache: datos para su historia en el siglo XVII [Larache: data for its history in the 17th century]. Instituto de Estudios Africanos, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ISBN 84-500-6144-X.
Rézette, Robert, ed. (1976). The Spanish enclaves in Morocco.
Braithwaite, John, ed. (1729). The History of the Revolution in the Empire of Morocco upon the Death of the late Emperor Muley Ishmael.
Mouette, Germain (2010). The travels of the Sieur Mouette, in the Kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, during his eleven years captivity in those parts. ISBN 978-1-140-97129-0.
Les Alaouites, Mohammed VI: Une dynastie, un règne (pdf), Les documents de L'Économiste (in French), Casablanca: L'Économiste, 2009 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Ibn_Sharif |
2018 Tunisian protests | The majority of the protests remained peaceful, yet some turned into more violent confrontations between the police and the protestors. These violent-clashes can be depicted in the way the government reacted towards the protests, doing so quite harshly. In the town 'EttadHamen' the government used teargas to suppress the protestors, this clearly shows an example of the harsh and violent reaction by the government. The government's reaction towards the erupted protests were mainly focusing on condemning the protestors and highlighting criminal offenses, such as looting and theft that according to governmental officials erupted during these protests.
The government therefore gave less or almost no attention to the demands of these protests, in which demonstrators called for an end to these social and economic difficulties. Instead, the army was demanded to operate in various of cities to safeguard governmental buildings from the protestors that were demonstrating outside of these buildings.
Ennahdha, a party in the governing coalition of Tunisia condemned the "exploitation of citizens' legitimate demands by certain anarchist groups" and stressed "the legitimacy of demands for development and employment and citizens full right to peaceful protest without violating the safety of others or attacking private and public property". On the other hand, the opposition alliance, Popular Front, called for "all Tunisian people [to] go out to the streets for a peaceful protests country wide for one clear goal, which is to bring down these actions that destroyed the Tunisian country and its people."
The Trotskyist WSWS, which is a website supportive of the protests, argued that in Tunisia elements of the old regime "managed to reconsolidate power in the interests of the native ruling elites and international capital," further saying that the reforms imposed by the government are pushed to "meet the conditions demanded by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union." Other supportive websites said that these "brave Tunisians...[are] courageous people rebelling long into the night [who] will continue on with or without our support."
The Tunisian prime minister critiqued the opposition party for encouraging the protestors to pose their discontent. Hamma Hamni, the leader of the opposition party 'Popular Front', claimed that protests would only end if the president would withdraw the set budget for 2018. Moreover, the government responded by promising 70.3 billion dollar, aiming at helping poorer families and providing healthcare to those in need. Many Tunisians however, remained skeptical of such promises and rather wanted to see long term solutions, Tunisians have dealt with many protests over the years and are therefore hoping to receive long term solutions that are aimed at decreasing inequality, poverty and unemployment rates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Tunisian_protests |
Palestinian territories | The political status of the territories has been the subject of negotiations between Israel and the PLO and of numerous statements and resolutions by the United Nations. (See List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel.) Since 1994, the autonomous Palestinian National Authority has exercised various degrees of control in large parts of the territories, as a result of the Declaration of Principles contained in the Oslo Accords. The United States government considers the West Bank and Gaza as a single entity for political, economic, legal and other purposes.
The State Department and other U.S. government agencies, such as USAID West Bank and Gaza, have been tasked with projects in the areas of democracy, governance, resources, and infrastructure. Part of the USAID mission is to provide flexible and discrete support for implementation of the Quartet Road Map. The Road Map is an internationally backed plan that calls for the progressive development of a viable Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza. Participating states provide assistance through direct contributions or through the Palestinian State account established by the World Bank.
Hamas won a majority of seats in elections for the Palestinian Parliament in 2006 and formed a government in Ramallah for the entire PA largely shunned by the United States and Israel. The Fatah movement continued to dominate the PA security forces in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip by force, executing PA officers and removing its officials, many of whom, such as Muhammad Dahlan, escaped the Gaza Strip with their families.
Mahmoud Abbas promptly deposed the Hamas-dominated PA government, and two rival administrations were created, a Fatah-controlled one in the West Bank, with which Israel, the US and the EU resumed business, and a Hamas-controlled one in the Gaza Strip which was largely shunned by the world community. After Hamas intensified rocket and mortar fire on Israeli civilian centers from the Gaza Strip, the United States and Israel instituted a military and economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. When that failed to topple the new government, a covert operation was launched to eliminate Hamas by force. The covert initiative was exposed when confidential State Department documents were accidentally leaked by the U.S. envoy. The talking points delivered to the Fatah leadership said:
Hamas should be given a clear choice, with a clear deadline: they either accept a new government that meets the Quartet principles, or they reject it. The consequences of Hamas' decision should also be clear: If Hamas does not agree within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform.
Since the Battle of Gaza (2007), the administration of the territories has been contested by two rival factions of the Palestinian National Authority, with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and Fatah continuing to administer the West Bank. Both groups claim legitimacy over leadership of the Palestinian territories. Most countries with an interest in the issues, including most of the Arab countries, recognize the administration of Mahmoud Abbas as the legitimate government over both Palestinian Territories.
During Operation Cast Lead the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1860 (2009), which said that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967 that will be a part of the Palestinian state.
On 15 December 2011, Iceland recognized Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within the pre-1967 Six-Day War borders; Össur Skarphéðinsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iceland, and Dr. Riad Malki, the Foreign Minister of Palestine, formally confirmed the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Iceland and Palestine.
The 2014 Fatah–Hamas Gaza Agreement provided for elections and the formation of a compromise unity government. The 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict intervened, however the unity government survived. In August, Palestinian leaders said they would apply to the United Nations Security Council for the establishment of a timetable for ending the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The application would be made on 15 September 2014, following an Arab League meeting on 5 September at which support for the move would be requested. Unless a timetable was established, the Palestinian leadership said it would apply to the International Criminal Court where it would hold Israel responsible for its actions not only in the West Bank, but in the Gaza Strip. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories |
Bahrain | On 15 August 1971, though the Shah of Iran was claiming historical sovereignty over Bahrain, he accepted a referendum held by the United Nations and eventually Bahrain declared independence and signed a new treaty of friendship with the United Kingdom. Bahrain joined the United Nations and the Arab League later in the year. The oil boom of the 1970s benefited Bahrain greatly, although the subsequent downturn hurt the economy. The country had already begun diversification of its economy and benefited further from the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bahrain replaced Beirut as the Middle East's financial hub after Lebanon's large banking sector was driven out of the country by the war.
In 1981, following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the Bahraini Shia population orchestrated a failed coup attempt under the auspices of a front organisation, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain. The coup would have installed a Shia cleric exiled in Iran, Hujjatu l-Islām Hādī al-Mudarrisī, as supreme leader heading a theocratic government. In December 1994, a group of youths threw stones at female runners for running bare-legged during an international marathon. The resulting clash with police soon grew into civil unrest.
A popular uprising occurred between 1994 and 2000 in which leftists, liberals and Islamists joined forces. The event resulted in approximately forty deaths and ended after Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa became the Emir of Bahrain in 1999. He instituted elections for parliament, gave women the right to vote, and released all political prisoners. A referendum on 14–15 February 2001 massively supported the National Action Charter. As part of the adoption of the National Action Charter on 14 February 2002, Bahrain changed its formal name from the State (dawla) of Bahrain to the Kingdom of Bahrain. At the same time, the title of the Head of State, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, was changed from Emir to King.
After the September 11 attacks, the country participated in military action against the Taliban in October 2001 by deploying a frigate in the Arabian Sea for rescue and humanitarian operations. As a result, in November of that year, US president George W. Bush's administration designated Bahrain as a "major non-NATO ally". Bahrain opposed the invasion of Iraq and had offered Saddam Hussein asylum in the days before the invasion. Relations improved with neighbouring Qatar after the border dispute over the Hawar Islands was resolved by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in 2001. Following the political liberalisation of the country, Bahrain negotiated a free trade agreement with the United States in 2004.
In 2005, Qal'at al-Bahrain, a fort and archaeological complex was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain |
Byzantine Empire | Basil I (r. 867–886) continued Michael's policies. His armies campaigned with mixed results in Italy but defeated the Paulicians of Tephrike. His successor Leo VI (r. 886–912) compiled and propagated a huge number of written works. These included the Basilika, a Greek translation of Justinian I's law-code which included over 100 new laws of Leo's devising; the Tactica, a military treatise; and the Book of the Eparch, which codified Constantinople's trading regulations. In non-literary contexts Leo was less successful: the empire lost in Sicily and against the Bulgarians, while he provoked theological scandal by marrying four times in an attempt to father a legitimate heir.
The early reign of that young heir, Constantine VII, was tumultuous, as his mother Zoe, the patriarch Nicholas, the powerful Simeon I of Bulgaria, and other influential figures jockeyed for power. In 920, the admiral Romanos I used his fleet to secure power, crowning himself and demoting Constantine to the position of junior co-emperor.
Between 1021 and 1022, following years of tensions, Basil II led a series of victorious campaigns against the Kingdom of Georgia, resulting in the annexation of several Georgian provinces to the empire. Basil's successors also annexed Bagratid Armenia in 1045. Importantly, both Georgia and Armenia were significantly weakened by the Byzantine administration's policy of heavy taxation and abolishing of the levy. The weakening of Georgia and Armenia played a significant role in the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071.
Basil II is considered among the most capable Byzantine emperors and his reign as the apex of the empire in the Middle Ages. By 1025, the date of Basil II's death, the Byzantine Empire stretched from Armenia in the east to Calabria in southern Italy in the west. Many successes had been achieved, ranging from the conquest of Bulgaria to the annexation of parts of Georgia and Armenia, and the reconquests of Crete, Cyprus, and the important city of Antioch. These were not temporary tactical gains but long-term reconquests.
The Byzantine Empire fell into a period of difficulties, caused to a large extent by the undermining of the theme system and the neglect of the military. Nikephoros II, John Tzimiskes, and Basil II shifted the emphasis of the military divisions (τάγματα, tagmata) from a reactive, defence-oriented citizen army into an army of professional career soldiers, increasingly dependent on foreign mercenaries. Mercenaries were expensive, however, and as the threat of invasion receded in the 10th century, so did the need for maintaining large garrisons and expensive fortifications. Basil II left a burgeoning treasury upon his death, but he neglected to plan for his succession. None of his immediate successors had any particular military or political talent, and the imperial administration increasingly fell into the hands of the civil service. Incompetent efforts to revive the Byzantine economy resulted in severe inflation and a debased gold currency. The army was seen as both an unnecessary expense and a political threat. Several standing local units were demobilised, further augmenting the army's dependence on mercenaries, which could be retained and dismissed on an as-needed basis.
At the same time, Byzantium was faced with new enemies. Its provinces in southern Italy were threatened by the Normans who arrived in Italy at the beginning of the 11th century. During a period of strife between Constantinople and Rome culminating in the East-West Schism of 1054, the Normans advanced slowly but steadily into Byzantine Italy. Reggio, the capital of the tagma of Calabria, was captured in 1060 by Robert Guiscard, followed by Otranto in 1068. Bari, the main Byzantine stronghold in Apulia, was besieged in August 1068 and fell in April 1071.
About 1053, Constantine IX disbanded what the historian John Skylitzes calls the "Iberian Army", which consisted of 50,000 men, and it was turned into a contemporary Drungary of the Watch. Two other knowledgeable contemporaries, the former officials Michael Attaleiates and Kekaumenos, agree with Skylitzes that by demobilising these soldiers, Constantine did catastrophic harm to the empire's eastern defences. The emergency lent weight to the military aristocracy in Anatolia, who in 1068 secured the election of one of their own, Romanos Diogenes, as emperor. In the summer of 1071, Romanos undertook a massive eastern campaign to draw the Seljuks into a general engagement with the Byzantine army. At the Battle of Manzikert, Romanos suffered a surprise defeat by Sultan Alp Arslan and was captured. Alp Arslan treated him with respect and imposed no harsh terms on the Byzantines. In Constantinople a coup put in power Michael Doukas, who soon faced the opposition of Nikephoros Bryennios and Nikephoros III Botaneiates. By 1081, the Seljuks had expanded their rule over virtually the entire Anatolian plateau from Armenia in the east to Bithynia in the west, and they had founded their capital at Nicaea, just 90 kilometres (56 miles) from Constantinople. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire |
Temple of Dendur | Amelia Edwards, an English writer who visited the temple on her 19th-century tour up the Nile, wrote:At Dendoor, when the sun is setting...we visit a tiny Temple on the western bank. It stands out above the river surrounded by a wall of enclosure...The whole thing is like an exquisite toy, so covered with sculptures, so smooth, so new-looking, so admirably built. Seeing them half by sunset, half by dusk, it matters not that these delicately-wrought bas-reliefs are of the Decadence school. The rosy half-light of an Egyptian afterglow covers a multitude of sins, and steeps the whole in an atmosphere of romance.The temple is decorated throughout with relief carvings which were originally painted in bright colors. The figures depicted include Augustus as a pharaoh interacting with goddesses and gods. Some of those divine beings are Amun of Debod, Arensnuphis, Harpocrates, Hathor of Bigga, Horus, Isis, Khnum, Osiris, Mandulis, Nephthys, Satis, Tephenis, and Thoth. The carvings also honor two heroic Nubian brothers turned demigods named Pihor and Pedesi. Pedesi means "he whom Isis has given" and, Pihor means "he who belongs to Horus."
The temple base has carvings of papyrus and lotus plants growing out of the Nile, symbolizing the god Hapi. Over the pylon and above the entrance to the temple proper is the Winged sun disk of the sky god Horus, representing the sky. The vultures on the ceiling of the pronaos repeat the sky motif.
The antechamber and the sanctuary are undecorated, except for the reliefs on the antechamber door frame and the back walls of the sanctuary. The latter show Pihor and Pedesi as young gods worshiping Isis and Osiris, respectively.
The temple's outer walls feature sunk relief carvings of Emperor Augustus as a pharaoh making offerings to the deities Isis, Osiris, and their son Horus. The subject repeats in raised relief carvings in the first room of the temple, showing Augustus as he prays and makes offerings. Hieroglyphs associated with the carvings refer to Augustus as Caesar, Pharaoh, and Autotrator. The latter is an alteration of Autokrator, or autocrat, the Greek equivalent of imperator. This misspelling seems deliberate to achieve greater symmetry in the hieroglyphs.
The exterior south doorway features cobras wearing crowns from upper and lower Egypt. To the left is a white crown, a symbol of upper Egypt, and a red crown for lower Egypt. On the left side, there is a depiction of Isis standing and wearing a close-fitting sheath, a headpiece horn from a cow, and a winged disk representing the sun god. In one hand, she holds an ankh, a symbol of life.
The scene on the inner south wall of the pronaos depicts the pharaoh and the two brothers Pihor and Pedesi with gifts of incense and water. The Egyptians believed that the pharaoh or Augustus could live forever by giving incense to the gods. The two brothers were both sitting and holding in one hand a staff called a scepter, a symbol of authority and the symbol of life. The pronaos north wall depicts Isis. The columns of the pronaos are decorated with sunk reliefs of men bringing offerings of animals and flowers to the temple.
On the east side of the pylon, the relief depicts Augustus with a linen bag in his hand in front of Pedesi and Pihor. The south ramp has a relief of Augustus making an offering of a cobra (the cobra of truth) to the god Harnedotes. Here, Augustus is depicted in Egyptian attire—a kilt with a bull's tail and the white crown of Upper Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Dendur |
Tourism in Lebanon | Mseilha Fort is a medieval fortification situated north of the city of Batroun in Lebanon. The current fort was built by Emir Fakhreddine II in the 17th century to guard the route from Tripoli to Beirut. The fort is built on a long, narrow limestone rock near the Nahr el-Jawz River. Its walls are constructed with small sandstone blocks quarried from the nearby coast and built onto the edge of the limestone rock. The thickness of the walls ranges from 1.5 to 2 meters (4 to 6.5 feet). The larger limestone blocks are the only remains of an earlier structure probably built for the same defensive reason. The fort is approached through a narrow path and small stairway cut into the northern side of the bedrock. A small platform precedes the low arched main gate, secured by two loopholes and a small opening in the ceiling above the entrance. The main gate leads to a vaulted vestibule, followed by a narrow triangular courtyard, giving access to a small one meter (3 feet) wide passageway leading to the archery room of the west tower. The more elevated part of the fort is accessed through the east side of the main courtyard. A doorway leading to a hall, followed by three vaulted rooms, gives access to the eastern tower.
Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles, also known as Qala'at Sanjil in Arabic, is a citadel and fort in Tripoli, Lebanon. It takes its name from Raymond de Saint-Gilles, the Count of Toulouse and Crusader commander who started its construction on a hilltop outside Tripoli in 1103 in order to lay siege to the city. Later, Raymond enlarged the fortress, which he named Mont Peregrinus (Mt Pilgrim). The original castle was burnt down in 1289, and rebuilt again on numerous occasions and was rebuilt in 1307-08 by Emir Essendemir Kurgi. Later the citadel was rebuilt in part by the Ottoman Empire which can be seen today, with its massive Ottoman gateway, over which is an engraving from Süleyman the Magnificent who had ordered the restoration. In the early 19th century, the Citadel was extensively restored by the Ottoman Governor of Tripoli Mustafa Agha Barbar.
Sidon Sea Castle is a crusader castle and one of the most prominent sites in the southern city of Sidon. During the 13th century, the Crusaders built Sidon's Sea Castle as a fortress on a small island connected to the mainland by a narrow 80m long roadway. The island was formerly the site of a temple to Melkart, the Phoenician version of Hercules. It was damaged I wars and renovated several times. It was partially destroyed by the Mamluks when they took over the city from the Crusaders, but they subsequently rebuilt it and added the long causeway. The castle later fell into disuse, but was again restored in the 17th century by Emir Fakhreddine II, only to suffer great damage. Today the castle consists primarily of two towers connected by a wall. In the outer walls, Roman columns were used as horizontal reinforcements, a feature often seen in fortifications built on or near former Roman sites. The rectangular west tower to the left of the entrance is the better preserved of the two. There is a large vaulted room scattered with old carved capitals and rusting cannonballs. A winding staircase leads up to the roof, where there is a small, domed Ottoman-era mosque. From the roof there is a great view across the old city and fishing harbor. The east tower isn't as well preserved and was built in two phases; the lower part dates to the Crusader period, while the upper level was built by the Mamluks. There has also been evidence of the old Phoenician city being buried under the sea in the area surrounding the castle, structures of walls, columns, stairways, remains of buildings, statues and cisterns.
Moussa Castle is a castle between Deir el Qamar and Beit ed-Dine in Lebanon. It was built single-handedly by Moussa Abdel Karim Al-Maamari (born on July 27, 1931), a Lebanese visionary. It is the work of his life. He needed 60 years (21900 days and 394200 hours) of work. According to his biography, as a student, Moussa has always dreamed of building such a castle, and used to doodle his dream on pieces of paper in class. Moussa was not a very sharp student and his teacher Anwar used to make fun of him and tell him: "You'll never accomplish anything." Moussa's crush, a Lebanese girl, used to say that she wants to marry a guy who owns a palace. Between 1951 and 1962, he prepared everything to fulfill his plan, including buying the land and paperwork. In 1962, his work of life started: He built the castle and handcrafted each of its stones and clay animated figures representing different scenes of the old Lebanese village life of the 19th century, making it a true work of a visionary and a masterpiece by all means.
Byblos Castle is a medieval castle in the town of Byblos, Lebanon. Originally a Phoenician stronghold, the castle was built over a white limestone cliff along the Mediterranean coastline of the town. It was built by the Crusaders in the 12th century from indigenous limestone and the remains of Roman structures. The finished structure was surrounded by a moat. Saladin captured the town and castle in 1188 and dismantled the walls in 1190. Later, the Crusaders recaptured Byblos and rebuilt the fortifications of the castle in 1197. In 1369, the castle had to fend off an attack from Cypriot vessels from Famagusta. The Byblos Castle has distinguished historical buildings for neighbors. Near it stand a few Egyptian temples, Phoenician Royal Necropolis and the Roman amphitheater. These are testament to the varied and rich history of the town of Byblos.
Beaufort Castle is a Crusader fortress in Nabatieh Governorate, Southern Lebanon, about 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) to the south-south-east of the village of Arnoun. There was a fortification on the site before it was captured by Fulk, King of Jerusalem, in 1139 and construction of the Crusader castle probably began soon after. Saladin captured Beaufort in 1190, and 60 years returned to Crusader control. In 1268 Sultan Baibars captured the castle. The castle was named "bel fort" or "beau fort" (French for "beautiful fortress") by the Crusaders who occupied the castle in the 12th century. Its Arabic name Qala'at al-Shaqif means Castle of the High Rock (shqif is the Aramaic word for "high rock"). Beaufort provides one of the few cases where a medieval castle proved of military value and utility also in modern warfare, as its late 20th-century history shows. In the 17th century Fakhr-al-Din II took the castle as a part of his network of fortifications. Fakhr-al-Din II was defeated by the Ottomans, who destroyed the upper portions of the castle. The area was ruled by feudal families until 1769. In 1782 the Governor of Acre besieged the castle, captured it and destroyed many of its remaining fortifications. The Galilee earthquake of 1837 caused further damage to the structure and from then on the ruins were used as a quarry and a shelter for sheep. In the 17th century, Fakhr-al-Din II took the castle as a part of his network of fortifications. Fakhr-al-Din II was defeated by the Ottomans, who destroyed the upper portions of the castle. The area was ruled by feudal families until 1769. In 1782 the Governor of Acre besieged the castle, captured it and destroyed many of its remaining fortifications. The Galilee earthquake of 1837 caused further damage to the structure and from then on the ruins were used as a quarry and a shelter for sheep. The outcrop Beaufort occupied overlooks the Litani River. The river flows past the east side of the castle, which stands atop a 300 meters (980 ft) cliff which declines steeply to the river. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Lebanon |
Qira'at | In the meantime, before the variations were finally committed entirely to writing, the Quran was preserved by recitation from one generation to the next. Doing the reciting were prominent reciters of a style of narration who had memorized the Quran (known as hafiz). According to Csaba Okváth,
It was during the period of the Successors [i.e. the generation of Muslims succeeding the companions of Muhammad ] and shortly thereafter that exceptional reciters became renowned as teachers of Qur'anic recitation in cities like Makkah, Madina, Kufa, Basra, and greater Syria (al-Sham). They attracted students from all over the expanding Muslim state and their modes of recitations were then attached to their names. It is therefore commonly said that [for example] he recites according to the reading of Ibn Kathir or Nafi'; this, however, does not mean that these reciters [Ibn Kathir or Nafi] are the originators of these recitations, their names have been attached to the mode of recitation simply because their rendition of the Prophetic manner of recitation was acclaimed for authenticity and accuracy and their names became synonymous with these Qur'anic recitations. In fact, their own recitation goes back to the Prophetic mode of recitation through an unbroken chain.
Each reciter had variations in their tajwid rules and occasional words in their recitation of the Quran are different or of a different morphology (form of the word) with the same root. Scholars differ on why there are different recitations (see below).
Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley gives an example of a line of transmission of recitation "you are likely to find ... in the back of a Qur'an" from the Warsh harf, going backwards from Warsh all the way to Allah himself:"[T]he riwaya of Imam Warsh from Nafi' al-Madini from Abu Ja'far Yazid ibn al-Qa'qa' from 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas from Ubayy ibn Ka'b from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, from Jibril, peace be upon him, from the Creator."
After Muhammad's death there were many qira'at, from which 25 were described by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam two centuries after Muhammad's death. The seven qira'at readings which are currently notable were selected in the fourth century by Abu Bakr Ibn Mujahid (died 324 AH, 936 CE) from prominent reciters of his time, three from Kufa and one each from Mecca, Medina, and Basra and Damascus. Later, three more recitations were canonized for ten. (The first seven readers named for a qiraa recitation died un/readers of the recitations lived in the second and third century of Islam. (Their death dates span from 118 AH to 229 AH).
Each reciter recited to two narrators whose narrations are known as riwaya (transmissions) and named after its primary narrator (rawi, singular of riwaya).
Each rawi has turuq (transmission lines) with more variants created by notable students of the master who recited them and named after the student of the master. Passed down from Turuq are wujuh: the wajh of so-and-so from the tariq of so-and-so. There are about twenty riwayat and eighty turuq.
In the 1730s, Quran translator George Sale noted seven principal editions of the Quran, "two of which were published and used at Medina, a third at Mecca, a fourth at Kufa, a fifth at Basra, a sixth in Syria, and a seventh called the common edition " He states that "the chief disagreement between their several editions of the Koran, consists in the division and number of the verses." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira%27at |
Miniature (illuminated manuscript) | The earliest extant miniatures are a series of uncolored pen drawings in the Chronograph of 354, which was lost after the Renaissance, but is known from copies. Fragments of some heavily illustrated luxury manuscripts from before about 450 have survived to the modern day. The Cotton Genesis was mostly destroyed by fire in London in 1731 and the Quedlinburg Itala fragment mostly destroyed in the Middle Ages, the vellum used in bookbindings.
There are also colored miniatures cut from the Ambrosian Iliad, an illustrated manuscript of the Iliad from the 5th century. In these pictures there is a considerable variety in the quality of the drawing, but there are many notable instances of fine figure-drawing, quite classical in sentiment, showing that the earlier art still exercised its influence. Such indications, too, of landscape as are to be found are of the classical type, not conventional in the sense of medieval conventionalism, but still attempting to follow nature, even if in an imperfect fashion; just as in the Pompeian and other frescoes of the Roman age.
Of even greater value from an artistic point of view are the miniatures of the Vatican manuscript of Virgil, known as the Vergilius Vaticanus, of the early 5th century. They are in a more perfect condition and on a larger scale than the Ambrosian fragments, and they therefore offer better opportunity for examining method and technique. The drawing is quite classical in style, and the idea is conveyed that the miniatures are direct copies from an older series. The colors are opaque: indeed, in all the miniatures of early manuscripts the employment of body color was universal. The method followed in placing the different scenes on the page is highly instructive of the practice followed, as we may presume, by the artists of the early centuries. It seems that the background of the scene was first painted in full, covering the whole surface of the page; then, over this background were painted the larger figures and objects; and over these again the smaller details in front of them were superimposed. (The painter's algorithm.) Again, for the purpose of securing something like perspective, an arrangement of horizontal zones was adopted, the upper ones containing figures on a smaller scale than those below.
It was reserved for the Byzantine school to break away more decidedly from the natural presentment of things and to develop artistic conventions. Yet in the best early examples of this school the classical sentiment still lingers, as the relics of the miniatures of the Cotton Genesis, and the best of the miniatures of the Vienna Dioscurides testify; and in the miniatures of the later Byzantine manuscripts, which were copied from earlier examples, the reproduction of the models is faithful. But on comparing the miniatures of the Byzantine school generally with their classical predecessors, one has a sense of having passed from the open air into the cloister. Under the restraint of ecclesiastical domination Byzantine art became more and more stereotyped and conventional. The tendency grows to paint the flesh-tints in swarthy hues, to elongate and emaciate the limbs, and to stiffen the gait. Browns, blue-greys and neutral tints are in favor. Here we first find the technical treatment of flesh-painting which afterwards became the special practice of Italian miniaturists, namely the laying on of the actual flesh-tints over a ground of olive, green or other dark hue. Landscape, such as it was, soon became quite conventional, setting the example for that remarkable absence of the true representation of nature which is such a striking attribute of the miniatures of the Middle Ages.
And yet, while the ascetic treatment of the miniatures obtained so strongly in Byzantine art, at the same time the Oriental sense of splendour shows itself in the brilliancy of much of the coloring and in the lavish employment of gold. In the miniatures of Byzantine manuscripts are first seen those backgrounds of bright gold which afterwards appear in such profusion in the productions of every western school of painting.
The influence of Byzantine art on that of medieval Italy is obvious. The early mosaics in the churches of Italy, such as those at Ravenna and Venice, also afford examples of the dominating Byzantine influence. But the early Middle Ages provide but few landmarks to guide the student; and it is only when he emerges into the 12th century, with its frescoes and miniatures still bearing the impress of the Byzantine tradition, that he can be satisfied that the connection has always existed during the intervening centuries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_(illuminated_manuscript) |
Islamic economics | Fiqh (religious law) has developed several traditional concepts having to do with economics. These included:
Zakat – the "charitable taxing of certain assets, such as currency, gold, or harvest, with an eye to allocating these taxes to eight expenditures that are also explicitly defined in the Quran, such as aid to those in need."
Gharar—"uncertainty". The presence of any element of excessive uncertainty, in a contract is prohibited.
Riba—"referred to as usury (modern Islamic economists reached consensus that Riba is any kind of interest, rather than just usury)" is prohibited.
Another source lists "general rules" include prohibition of Riba, Gharar, and also
Qimar (gambling) and
the encouragement of Taa’won (mutual cooperation),
"the overriding doctrine of fairness in commercial dealings is established."
These concepts, like others in Islamic law, came from study of the Quran and ahadith—or as one observer put it, were
constructed on the basis of isolated prescriptions, anecdotes, examples, words of the Prophet, all gathered together and systematized by commentators according to an inductive, casuistic method."
In addition to Quran and ahadith, sometimes other sources such as al-urf (custom), or al-ijma (consensus of the jurists) are employed, to create laws that determine whether actions were forbidden, discouraged, allowed, encouraged and obligatory for Muslims. The different school of fiqh (madhhab) vary slightly in their rulings.
Works of fiqh are typically divided into different "books" such as a Book of Iman, of Salah, Zakat, Taqwa, Hajj, but not `economics` or `economy`. Some brief works might contain almost nothing related to matters of property, sales, finance Others do not gather questions on economic issues in one heading, the case in Tawzih al-masa'il, a work of fatawa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who although a pioneer of political Islam approached the subject of economy as the classical ulamas do ... the chapter on selling and buying (Kharid o forush) comes after the one on pilgrimage and present economic questions as individual acts open to moral analysis: `To lend [without interest, on a note from the lender] is among the good works that are particularly recommended in the verses of the Quran and in the Traditions.`
Other works divided the subjects of fiqh into four "quarters": typically worship (al-`Ibadat), marriage and family law (al-Munakahat), criminal law (Jinayat), commercial transaction law (Mu'amalat). At least one author (M. Kahf) writes that Mu'amalat is "closely related" to Islamic Economics. (However even with the "quarters" division of fiqh topics mu'amalat would not include inheritance or wedding dower (mahr) (which at least often comes under marriage and family law), or calculation of alms (zakat, which comes under al-`Ibadat)).
A number of scholars (Olivier Roy, Timur Kuran, Omar Norman) have noted the recentness of reflecting on economic issues in the Islamic world, and the difference between economics the social science based on data, and Islamic jurisprudence based on revealed truth.
Salman Ahmed Shaikh and Monzer Kahf insist on a clear distinction between the roles of Fiqh and Islamic Economics, Shaikh saying to be meritorious as a separate field of inquiry, Islamic economics cannot confine itself just to explaining and deducing laws in economic matters based on core principles. Since this function is already performed by the discipline of Islamic jurisprudence ...
M. Kahf writes that mu'amalat and Islamic economics "often intermingle", mu'amalat "sets terms and conditions of conduct for economic and financial relationships in the Islamic economy" and provides the "grounds on which new instruments" of Islamic financing are developed, but that the "nature of Fiqh imposes a concern about individual transactions and their minute legalistic characteristics", so that analyzing Islamic economics in terms of Fiqh" risks losing "the ability to provide a macro economic theory".
According to economist Muhammad Akram Khan the "main plank" of Islamic economics is the "theory of riba", while "another landmark" is zakat, a tax on wealth and income. According to another contemporary writer Salah El-Sheikh, "Islamic economic principles" (what he calls a "FiqhiConomic model") utilize the Faqīh (Islamic jurisprudence) as supporting material, but are grounded upon the ethical teachings within the Qu'rān. Sharīah's basic tenets involve gharar and (fadl māl bilā 'iwad). Gharar insists all knowledge about a trade or transaction is known before two individuals complete a transaction and (fadl māl bilā 'iwad) warns against unjustified enrichment through trade and business. These tenets were "among the first economic regulations" and their philosophy can be seen today in modern Capitalism. Within Sharīah, El-Sheikh states, Gharar functions as a divine deterrent against asymmetric information and allows trade to prosper. Riba, ensures each transaction is conducted at a fair price, not allowing one party to benefit exceedingly, which shares a parallel philosophy with Karl Marx "Das Kapital": seeking a greater outcome for the community. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_economics |
Humayun's Tomb | Before the restoration work was undertaken, vandalism and illegal encroachments were rampant at the site of the tomb, presenting a serious danger to the preservation of the tomb. At the main entrance of Humayun's Tomb, dingy stalls had been put up under a very corrupt system of municipal patronage known as tehbazari, and all sorts of heavy vehicles were allowed to be parked illegally in these open spaces. On the Nila Gumbad side was a huge citadel of India's vote bank politics – thousands of "slum dwellers" were kept by an influential section of the political leadership to serve as "bonded voters" during elections. The environment of the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya had also been ruthlessly degraded and the holy tank had become a messy cesspool.
Restoration work by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), in collaboration with Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), began around 1999 after research work, which started in 1997, and was completed in March 2003. Around 12 hectares of lawns were replanted, and over 2500 trees and plants, including mango, lemon, neem, hibiscus and jasmine cuttings, were planted in the gardens. Installation of a new water circulation system for the walkway channels was also undertaken. To ensure that water flowed naturally through the channels and pools on the 12-hectare (30 acre) site without the aid of hydraulic systems, the water channels were re-laid to an exacting grade of one centimetre every 40 metres (1:4000 slope). This eventually enabled water to flow through the watercourses in the gardens, and dormant fountains to start functioning once again. Other tasks in this mammoth restoration project included setting up a rainwater harvesting system using 128 ground water recharge pits, and desilting and revitalising old wells that were discovered during the restoration work. This was first a privately funded collaborative effort under the aegis of the National Cultural Fund (NCF) by the ASI. Funding included a sum of $650,000 from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture of His Highness the Aga Khan, with help from the Oberoi Hotels Group. In addition, AKTC is conducting a more significant restoration at Babur's tomb, the resting place of Humayun's father in Kabul.
After the restoration work, the conditions in and around this complex underwent a sea-change. All the stalls and other intrusions were removed and the monuments and green spaces restored. Elegant gardens now surround the monuments, adding to their dignity and grace. When illuminated at night, the monument looks truly magnificent.
In 2009, as a part of the ongoing restoration work, the ASI and AKTC, after months of manual work using hand-tools, removed from the roof a thick layer of cement concrete that had been exerting pressure of about 1,102 tons on the structure. The cement concrete was originally laid in the 1920s to prevent water seepage, and led to a blockage in water passages. Subsequently, each time there was leakage, a fresh layer of cement was added, leading to an accumulated thickness of about 40 cm; this has now been replaced with a traditional lime-based roof layer. In the next phase, similar treatment was given to the tomb's first chabutra (plinth), which was originally paved with large blocks of quartzite stone, some weighing over a 1,000 kg. In the 1940s, an uneven settlement in the lower plinth had been corrected by covering it with a layer of concrete, adding to the disfigurement of the original Mughal flooring, which matched with that at the West Gate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humayun%27s_Tomb |
Erbil | The Citadel of Erbil is a tell or occupied mound in the historical heart of Erbil, rising between 25 and 32 metres (82 and 105 ft) from the surrounding plain. The buildings on top of the tell stretch over a roughly oval area of 430 by 340 metres (1,410 ft × 1,120 ft) occupying 102,000 square metres (1,100,000 sq ft). It has been claimed that the site is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the world. The earliest evidence for occupation of the citadel mound dates to the fifth millennium BC and possibly earlier. It appears for the first time in historical sources during the Ur III period and gained particular importance during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (tenth to seventh centuries BC) period. West of the citadel at Ary Kon quarter, a chamber tomb dating to the Neo-Assyrian Empire period has been excavated. During the Sassanian period and the Abbasid Caliphate, Erbil was an important centre for Syriac Christianity and the Assyrians in general. After the Mongols captured the citadel in 1258, Erbil's importance began to decline. The main gate is guarded by an immense statue of a Kurd reading: "the house of the citadel behind him are built into stony ground of the mound and look down on the streets and tarmacked roads that circle them".
During the 20th century, the urban structure was significantly modified, as a result of which a number of houses and public buildings were destroyed. In 2007, the High Commission for Erbil Citadel Revitalization (HCECR) was established to oversee the restoration of the citadel. In the same year, all inhabitants, except one family, were evicted from the citadel as part of a large restoration project. Since then, archaeological research and restoration works have been carried out at and around the tell by various international teams and in co-operation with local specialists, and many areas remain off-limits to visitors due to the danger of unstable walls and infrastructure. The government plans to have 50 families live in the citadel once it is renovated.
The only religious structure that currently survives in the citadel is the Mulla Effendi mosque. When it was fully occupied, the citadel was divided in three districts or mahallas: from east to west the Serai, the Takya and the Topkhana. The Serai was occupied by notable families; the Takya district was named after the homes of dervishes, which are called takyas; and the Topkhana district housed craftsmen and farmers. Other sights to visit in the citadel include the bathing rooms (hammam) built in 1775 located near the mosque and the Textile Museum. Erbil citadel has been inscribed on the World Heritage List on 21 June 2014. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erbil |
Peasants' revolt in Palestine | In consolidating his power, Muhammad Ali, the rebel governor of Ottoman Egypt, was modeling his rule on the bureaucratic organization characteristic of modern European states. Like earlier rulers of Egypt, Muhammad Ali sought to extend his control over greater Syria (the Levant) for its strategic value and natural resources. Syria also had a prospering international trading community with well-developed markets. In Muhammad Ali's strategy, Syria would serve as a captive market for goods being produced in Egypt. Moreover, Syria could serve as a buffer state between Egypt and the Ottoman sultan in Constantinople. Muhammad Ali was attempting to become independent of the Ottoman Empire.
A new fleet and army was raised under Muhammad Ali, and on 31 October 1831, his son Ibrahim Pasha invaded Syria, initiating the First Egyptian–Ottoman War. The pretext for the expedition was Muhammad Ali's quarrel with Abdullah Pasha, the governor of Acre. Muhammad Ali alleged that 6,000 fellahin (peasants or farm laborers) had fled to Acre to escape the Egyptian draft, corvée, and taxes, and he demanded their return. Ibrahim Pasha advanced through Palestine, occupied Haifa in December 1831, and made the city his primary military base.
Egyptian economic and political policies alienated four broad and influential factions in Palestine, namely the effendiyat (notables) of Jerusalem, the bulk of the major clans in Jabal Nablus, the clans of the Jerusalem hinterland, and the Bedouin tribes in the areas of Hebron and Bethlehem.
In late 1832, Qasim al-Ahmad, leader of the Qasim clan and the chief of the nahiya (subdistrict) of Jamma'in in Jabal Nablus was dismissed by Ibrahim Pasha from his additional post of mutassalim (administrator) of Jerusalem after having served a few months in that office. The official reasoning for Qasim's dismissal was his "advanced age". He was replaced by his son Muhammad al-Qasim, who was consequently removed from the more powerful post of mutassalim of Nablus. Afterward, Sulayman Abd al-Hadi of the Arraba-based Abd al-Hadi clan, a prominent ally of the Egyptians, was appointed to Muhammad's former post in Nablus. The move was a power-play by Ibrahim Pasha and the Abd al-Hadis, who were quickly gaining prominence in the region; their members had been appointed to head the Sidon Eyalet (which included part of northern Palestine) and a number of its districts. The move provoked the Qasim clan's anger with the Abd al-Hadi family and the Egyptian authorities.
The Abu Ghosh clan, based in the Jerusalem-area village of Qaryat al-Inab, traditionally served as toll collectors for the Jerusalem-Jaffa road, and were increasingly considered by Ibrahim Pasha to be extortionists. They were targeted by the authorities in 1833. The clan's leadership was arrested, including their head sheikh Ibrahim Abu Ghosh, and were temporarily sentenced to forced labor in Acre. Relations between the authorities and the Bedouin tribes of south-central Palestine were also antagonistic. Traditionally, during Ottoman rule, the Bedouin were allowed to collect tribute payments from travelers and the inhabitants of the area in return for services to the state. Ibrahim Pasha saw the Bedouin as raiders who exceeded their privileges and abolished this practice. He also imposed additional conditions on the Bedouin, primarily the requirement of transporting grain for Egyptian troops in return for the right to graze livestock. In 1833, the Dura-based Amr tribe of the Hebron Hills, which was headed by Isa Amr and Abd al-Rahman Amr, was targeted in a military campaign by Ibrahim Pasha. The Abu Ghosh, the Ras Karkar-based Simhan clan, and the Amr tribe were essentially at war with the Egyptians.
The imposition of new taxation categories that were a departure from both secular Ottoman law and the traditionally accepted Islamic law drew local Muslim anger at the authorities. However, the principal point of contention between the authorities and the notables of Jerusalem and Nablus was the conscription order by Ibrahim Pasha on 25 April 1834. That day, Ibrahim Pasha convened with all of the clan leaders from both cities to demand the drafting of one out of every five Muslim men of fighting age. The order would begin with the conscription of 200 men from the town of Jerusalem, a combined 3,500 men from Jerusalem Sanjak and Nablus Sanjak, and 500 men from town of Hebron. According to a chronicled account, during the meeting, Ibrahim Pasha attempted to address the reluctance of the notables in sending their kinsmen and peasants to the army, asking that as Muslims at war with Christian nations, "is it not necessary for us to have a big standing army?" The notables replied in the affirmative, but asserted that their men were already trained in the art of war and like the generations before them, they would "willingly shed blood" for the "fatherland" and "defend their country" from "the enemies of our religion". Ibrahim Pasha countered that their fighters would need to be professionally trained, telling them "War is not the place for a herd of useless men". By May 1834, the only prominent ally of the Egyptians in Palestine was the Abd al-Hadi clan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_revolt_in_Palestine |
Dromedary | The dromedary generally suffers from fewer diseases than other domestic livestock such as goats and cattle. Temperature fluctuations occur throughout the day in a healthy dromedary – the temperature falls to its minimum at dawn, rises until sunset and falls during the night. Nervous camels may vomit if they are carelessly handled; this does not always indicate a disorder. Rutting males may develop nausea.
The dromedary is prone to trypanosomiasis, a disease caused by a parasite transmitted by the tsetse fly. The main symptoms are recurring fever, anaemia and weakness; the disease is typically fatal for the camel. Brucellosis is another prominent malady. In an observational study, the seroprevalence of this disease was generally low (2 to 5%) in nomadic or moderately free dromedaries, but it was higher (8 to 15%) in denser populations. Brucellosis is caused by different biotypes of Brucella abortus and B. melitensis. Other internal parasites include Fasciola gigantica (trematode), two types of cestode (tapeworm) and various nematodes (roundworms). Among external parasites, Sarcoptes species cause sarcoptic mange. In a 2000 study in Jordan, 83% of the 32 camels studied tested positive for sarcoptic mange. In another study, dromedaries were found to have natural antibodies against the rinderpest and ovine rinderpest viruses.
In 2013, a seroepidemiological study (a study investigating the patterns, causes and effects of a disease on a specific population on the basis of serologic tests) in Egypt was the first to show the dromedary might be a host for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). A 2013–14 study of dromedaries in Saudi Arabia concluded the unusual genetic stability of MERS-CoV coupled with its high seroprevalence in the dromedary makes this camel a highly probable host for the virus. The full genome sequence of MERS-CoV from dromedaries in this study showed a 99.9% match to the genomes of human clade B MERS-CoV. Another study in Saudi Arabia showed the presence of MERS-CoV in 90% of the evaluated dromedaries and suggested that camels could be the animal source of MERS-CoV.
Fleas and ticks are common causes of physical irritation. Hyalomma dromedarii is especially adapted to arid conditions, changing its moulting process to complete more or all of its life cycle on a single host if stressed, and having an unusually wide host range. The larvae are not well understood but their questing phase is assumed to occur during the winter, which is also when rain arrives. The nymphs infest the host mostly in January, then the adults May to September. In a study in Egypt, H. dromedarii was dominant in dromedaries, comprising 95.6% of the adult ticks isolated from the camels. In Israel, the number of ticks per camel ranged from 20 to 105. Nine camels in the date palm plantations in Arava Valley were injected with ivermectin, which is not effective against Hyalomma tick infestations. Larvae of the camel nasal fly Cephalopsis titillator can cause possibly fatal brain compression and nervous disorders. Illnesses that can affect dromedary productivity are pyogenic diseases and wound infections caused by Corynebacterium and Streptococcus, pulmonary disorders caused by Pasteurella such as hemorrhagic septicemia and Rickettsia species, camelpox, anthrax, and cutaneous necrosis caused by Streptothrix and deficiency of salt in the diet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromedary |
Abbas the Great | After the queen's death, Hamza Mirza, aged eleven, was proclaimed crown prince. The Qizilbash found no reason to fear a child. So they took control over the realm while fighting among themselves over the division of power. The conflict was most intense at the court in Qazvin and in Khorasan, where Ali-Qoli Khan Shamlu, and his principal ally, Murshid Qoli Khan Ustajlu, had for some time been at war with the Turkman governor of Mashhad, Morteza Quli Khan Pornak. The Takkalu tribe eventually seized the power in Qazvin and proceeded to purge a number of prominent Shamlu members, among them being the mother and father of Ali-Qoli Khan. This angered Ali-Qoli Khan and, just as the queen had predicted, in 1581, he took arms against the crown and made his ward, the ten-year-old Abbas, the figurehead of a rebellion in Khorasan by proclaiming him Shah of Iran. Ali-Qoli and Murshid Qoli Khan took control of Nishapur; there, they struck coins and read khutba in Abbas' name.
In the following year, an army from western Iran advanced into Khorasan to resolve the situation. This army laid siege to Torbat-e Heydarieh, where Murshid Qoli was in control, and on Herat, where both Ali-Qoli Khan and Abbas resided. Both attempts proved futile. Upon hearing the news of another Ottoman attack on northwest Iran, the leading ministers of the campaign hurriedly reached an agreement with Ali-Qoli Khan. The former rebel suffered no repercussions and only had to pledge loyalty to Hamza Mirza as the heir apparent. He remained as the governor and as Abbas' guardian and even received a reward from the shah. Mohammad Khodabanda removed Ali-Qoli Khan's old enemy, Morteza Quli Khan Pornak, from his position as governor of Mashhad and replaced him with an Ustajlu amir. According to Iskandar Beg Monshi, many came to believe Abbas Mirza's claim would eventually prevail over Hamza Mirza's.
Meanwhile, Hamza Mirza was preoccupied with pushing the Ottomans out of Tabriz. However, he became caught up in the rivalries between the Qizilbash tribes and angered his officers by executing the Qizilbash governor of Azarbaijan. On 5 December 1586, he was assassinated by his personal barber, who may have had been bribed by a group of Qizilbash conspirators. This assassination provided a pathway for Abbas' ascension.
In the meantime, in Khorasan, Murshid Qoli Khan emerged as a rival to Ali-Qoli. He successfully seized Mashhad and abducted Abbas from Ali-Qoli's possession. An Uzbek invasion advanced through Khorasan and laid siege to Herat. This threatened Murshid Qoli's position who realised it was his last chance to enthrone Abbas. Many of the Qizilbash amirs gave their assurance of their support for placing Abbas on the throne. After learning that Mohammad Khodabanda had left Qazvin to confront rebels in the south, Murshid Qoli Khan decided to strike.
During the first ten days of Ramadan 1586, Abbas, his guardian and a small escort of not more than a few hundred horsemen, decided to ride towards Qazvin. As they rode along the Silk Road, Qizilbash amirs from the powerful Takkalu, Afshar and Zul al-Qadr tribes, who controlled many of the key towns on the way, came to pledge their allegiance. By the time they approached Qazvin, their small force had increased to 2,000 armed horsemen. The lord mayor of Qazvin and the Qizilbash amirs inside the city at first urged resistance. But they gave up when crowds of citizens and soldiers, anxious to avoid fighting, came out onto the streets and voiced their support for Abbas, who rode into the capital beside Murshid Qoli Khan in late-September 1587.
Mohammad Khodabanda and his heir apparent, Abu Taleb Mirza, and their entourage of Ustajlu and Shamlu amirs, were camped 200 miles away in the city of Qom. When the news reached them, the amirs decided to abandon the shah and his heir for Abbas Mirza. Mohammad Khodabanda decide that he had no choice but to abdicate. On 1 October 1587, at a ceremony in the palace in Qazvin, he placed his crown on the head of his seventeen-year-old son, who ascended the throne as Abbas I. Murshid Qoli Khan, to whom Abbas owed the crown, was rewarded with the title of vakil (viceroy). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_the_Great |
Ridda Wars | In May 632, Muhammad ordered a large expedition to be prepared against the Byzantine Empire in order to avenge the martyrs of the Battle of Mu'tah. He appointed Usama ibn Zayd, the son of Zayd ibn Harithah who was killed in the Battle at Mu'tah, as commander of this force so he could avenge the death of his father. However, as Muhammad was ailing, the expedition was delayed. In June 632, Muhammad died and Abu Bakr was chosen as the caliph at Saqifah.
On the first day of his caliphate, Abu Bakr ordered the army of Usama to prepare to march into battle. Abu Bakr was under great pressure regarding this military expedition due to rising rebellion, with many regions across Arabia withholding zakat and leaving Islam. Before his march into battle, Usama sent Umar to Abu Bakr and is reported to have said:
Go to the Caliph, ask him to permit the army to remain at Medina. All the leaders of the community are with me. If we go, none will be left to prevent the infidels from tearing Medina to pieces.Abu Bakr however refused his demands. On June 26, 632, the army of Usama broke camp and moved out. After leaving Medina, Usama marched to Tabuk where most of the tribes in the region opposed him fiercely, but were defeated. Usama raided far and wide in the region of Northern Arabia, starting with the Quza'a, and then made his way to Dawmatu l-Jandal (modern Al Jawf, Saudi Arabia). Usama next marched to Mu'tah, attacked the Christian Arabs of the tribes of Banu Kalb and the Ghassanids in a small battle. Then he returned to Medina, bringing with him a large number of captives and a considerable amount of wealth, part of which comprised the spoils of war and part taxation of the re-conquered tribes. The Islamic army remained outside of Medina for 40 days. This expedition became notable in Islamic history as the eighteen year old Usama had been appointed as overall commander, leading veterans and high ranked Companions of the Prophet such as Umar, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Sa'id ibn Zayd, Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, and Qatada ibn al-Nu'man.
Usama's expedition succeeded in forcing several rebel tribes to resubmit to Medinan rule and rejoin Islam. The Quza'a remained rebellious and unrepentant, but 'Amr ibn al-'As later attacked them and forced them to surrender again.
Meanwhile, the rebels of the Ghatafan clan from Qays's tribe made several attempts to capture Mecca, which was still loyal to Islam, before joining the rebel from the north, Tulayha of the Banu Asad, who was seen by many as a rival prophet to Muhammad. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridda_Wars |
Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia | The first Majlis ash-Shura (Consultative Assembly) was founded by King Abdulaziz on 13 January 1926. It was first named the Shura Council of the Hijaz and chaired by his son, King Faisal. However, the complete institutionalization of the assembly was finalized in 1932. Later, it was expanded to include twenty-five members at the beginning of King Saud's reign. However, its functions were transferred to the Cabinet of Ministers due to political pressures of the royal family members. On the other hand, Majlis ash-Shura was not officially dissolved and remained ineffective until King Fahd revived it in 2000.
King Fahd decreed a new Majlis ash-Shura Law on 24 November 2000, which replaced the previous law that had been effective since 1928, and decreed the bylaws of the council and their supplements on 22 August 1993. The first term council (1993–1997) had a speaker and 60 members.: 949 The membership was increased by 30 in each of the following terms: the second term 90 members (1997–2001),: 950 third term 120 members (2001–2005) and fourth term 150 members (2005–2009). Thus, the number of members increased to 150 members plus the speaker in the fourth term council.
Having been expanded in 1997 and 2001, the council achieved a place in the International Parliamentary Union by the end of 2003. The fourth term council held 845 sessions and issued 1174 declarations during its second year. In September 2011, just a few days before the 2011 municipal elections, King Abdullah stated that women may become members of the council.
In January 2013, King Abdullah issued two royal decrees, granting women thirty seats on the council, and stating that women must always hold at least a fifth of the seats on the council. According to the decrees, the female council members must be "committed to Islamic Shariah disciplines without any violations" and be "restrained by the religious veil." The decrees also said that the female council members would be entering the council building from special gates, sit in seats reserved for women and pray in special worshipping places. Earlier, officials said that a screen would separate genders and an internal communications network would allow men and women to communicate. Women first joined the council in 2013, and three were named as deputy chairpersons of three committees: Thurayya Obeid (deputy chairwoman of the human rights and petitions committee), Zainab Abu Talib (deputy chairwoman of the information and cultural committee) and Lubna Al Ansari (deputy chairwoman of the health affairs and environment committee). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consultative_Assembly_of_Saudi_Arabia |
Comparative religion | In the study of comparative religion, the category of Abrahamic religions consists of the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, which claim Abraham (Hebrew Avraham אַבְרָהָם; Arabic Ibrahim إبراهيم ) as a part of their sacred history. Smaller religions such as Baháʼí Faith that fit this description are sometimes included but are often omitted.
The original belief in the God of Abraham eventually became strictly monotheistic present-day Rabbinic Judaism. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. Jews hold that the Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, they also believe in a supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud.
Christians believe that Christianity is the fulfillment and continuation of the Jewish Old Testament. Christians believe that Jesus (Hebrew Yeshua יֵשׁוּעַ) is the awaited Messiah (Christ) foretold in the Old Testament prophecies, and believe in subsequent New Testament scripture. Christians in general believe that Jesus is the incarnation or Son of God. Their creeds generally hold in common that the incarnation, ministry, suffering, death on the cross, and resurrection of Jesus was for the salvation of mankind.
Islam believes the present Christian and Jewish scriptures have been corrupted over time and are no longer the original divine revelations as given to the Jewish people and to Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. For Muslims, the Quran is the final, complete revelation from God (Arabic الله Allah), who believe it to have been revealed to Muhammad alone, who is believed by Muslims to be the final prophet of Islam, and the Khatam an-Nabiyyin, meaning the last of the prophets ever sent by Allah ("seal of the prophets").
Based on the Muslim figure of the Mahdī, the ultimate savior of humankind and the final Imām of the Twelve Imams, Ali Muhammad Shirazi, later known as Bab, created the Bábí movement out of the belief that he was the gate to the Twelfth Imām. This signaled a break with Islam and started a new religious system, Bábism. However, in the 1860s a split occurred after which the vast majority of Bábís who considered Mirza Husayn `Ali or Bahá'u'lláh to be Báb's spiritual successor founded the Baháʼí Movement, while the minority who followed Subh-i-Azal came to be called Azalis. The Baháʼí division eventually became a full-fledged religion of its own, the Baháʼí Faith. In comparison to the other Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the number of adherents for Baháʼí faith and other minor Abrahamic religions are not very significant.
Out of the three major Abrahamic faiths, Christianity and Judaism are the two religions that diverge the most in theology and practice.
The historical interaction of Islam and Judaism started in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam. There are many common aspects between Islam and Judaism, and as Islam developed, it gradually became the major religion closest to Judaism. As opposed to Christianity, which originated from interaction between ancient Greek, Roman, and Hebrew cultures, Judaism is very similar to Islam in its fundamental religious outlook, structure, jurisprudence and practice. There are many traditions within Islam originating from traditions within the Hebrew Bible or from post-biblical Jewish traditions. These practices are known collectively as the Isra'iliyat.
The historical interaction between Christianity and Islam connects fundamental ideas in Christianity with similar ones in Islam. Islam accepts many aspects of Christianity as part of its faith – with some differences in interpretation – and rejects other aspects. Islam believes the Quran is the final revelation from God and a completion of all previous revelations, including the Bible.
Mandaeism, sometimes also known as Sabianism (after the mysterious Sabians mentioned in the Quran, a name historically claimed by several religious groups), is a Gnostic and monotheistic religion.: 4 John the Baptist is their chief prophet and frequent baptism is part of their core beliefs. According to most scholars, Mandaeism originated sometime in the first three centuries CE, in either southwestern Mesopotamia or the Syro-Palestinian area. However, some scholars take the view that Mandaeism is older and dates from pre-Christian times. Mandaeans assert that their religion predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a monotheistic faith. Mandaeans believe that they descend directly from Shem, Noah's son,: 182 and also from John the Baptist's original disciples. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_religion |
Ibn Tufayl | Ibn Tufayl was the author of Ḥayy bin Yaqẓān (Arabic: حي بن يقظان, lit. 'Alive, son of Awake'), also known as Philosophus Autodidactus in Latin, a philosophical romance and allegorical novel inspired by Avicennism and Sufism, and which tells the story of an autodidactic feral child, raised by a gazelle and living alone on a desert island, who, without contact with other human beings, discovers ultimate truth through a systematic process of reasoned inquiry. Hayy ultimately comes into contact with civilization and religion when he meets a castaway named Absal (Asāl in some translations). He determines that certain trappings of religion, namely imagery and dependence on material goods, are necessary for the multitude in order that they might have decent lives. However, imagery and material goods are distractions from the truth and ought to be abandoned by those whose reason recognizes that they are. The names of the characters in the novel, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, Salamān, and Absāl were borrowed from Ibn Sina's tales. The title of the novel is also the same as Ibn Sina's novel. Ibn Tufayl did this on purpose to use the characters and the title as a small reference to Ibn Sina, as he wanted to touch upon his philosophy.
Ibn Tufayl's Philosophus Autodidactus was written as a response to al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In the 13th century, Ibn al-Nafis later wrote the Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah (known as Theologus Autodidactus in the West) as a response to Ibn Tufayl's Philosophus Autodidactus.
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan had a significant influence on both Arabic literature and European literature, and it went on to become an influential best-seller throughout Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work also had a "profound influence" on both classical Islamic philosophy and modern Western philosophy. It became "one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution" and European Enlightenment, and the thoughts expressed in the novel can be found "in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Immanuel Kant."
A Latin translation of the work, entitled Philosophus Autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by Edward Pococke the Younger. The first English translation (by Simon Ockley) was published in 1708. These translations later may have inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, which also featured a desert island narrative. The novel also inspired the concept of "tabula rasa" developed in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) by John Locke, who was a student of Pococke. His Essay went on to become one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley. Hayy's ideas on materialism in the novel also have some similarities to Karl Marx's historical materialism.
It also foreshadowed Molyneux's Problem, proposed by William Molyneux to Locke, who included it in the second book of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
Other European writers influenced by Philosophus Autodidactus included Gottfried Leibniz, Melchisédech Thévenot, John Wallis, Christiaan Huygens, George Keith, Robert Barclay, the Quakers, Samuel Hartlib, and Voltaire. In more recent readings, Nadia Maftouni has coined the term Sciart for intertwined artistic and scientific activities and has described Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan as a leading instant which touches on issues like human anatomy, autopsy, and vivisection within the confines of his novel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Tufayl |
Sinai and Palestine campaign | As the dry season approached Allenby intended to advance to secure Tiberias, Haifa and the Yarmuk Valley towards Hauran, the Sea of Galilee and Damascus. The peoples inhabiting the region of the Sharon battlefield varied greatly in their background, religious beliefs and political outlook. Living from Jericho northwards, were indigenous Jews in Samaria, Moravians in Galilee [probably a confusion between two German Protestant groups, the Moravian Brethren who ran a leppers asylum in Jerusalem, and the much more numerous Templers, who had settled mainly in Galilee], some Druse, Shi'a Metawals and a few Nussiri (pagans). In the east were the Bedouin. In Haifa town, about half the population was Muslim and in Acre almost all were Muslim. On the Esdraelon Plain as far as Beisan were Sunni Arabs and one new Jewish colony near Afulah. Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in the foothill country of Northern Galilee. Christians of at least five denominations formed a large majority in and around Nazareth town. The inhabitants of the eastern part of this Northern Galilee area were predominantly indigenous Jews, who had always inhabited Tiberias and Safed. In the region of the Nablus battlefield, the inhabitants from Beersheba to Jericho were also quite diverse. The population was mainly Arab of the Sunni branch of Islam, with some Jews and Christians. At Nablus, they were almost exclusively Moslems excepting the less than 200 members of the Samaritan sect of original Jews. To the east of the Jordan Valley in the Es Salt district were Syrian and Greek Orthodox Christians, and near Amman, Circassians and Turkmans.
Allenby finally launched his long-delayed attack on 19 September 1918. The campaign has been called the Battle of Megiddo (which is a transliteration of the Hebrew name of an ancient town known in the west as Armageddon). The British made major efforts to deceive the Ottoman Army as to their actual intended target of operations. This effort was successful and the Ottoman Army was taken by surprise when the British suddenly attacked Megiddo. As the Ottoman troops started a full-scale retreat, the Royal Air Force bombed the fleeing columns of men from the air and within a week, the Ottoman army in Palestine ceased to exist as a military force.
Despite its name, the actual battlefield of the Battle of Megiddo (1918) was relatively far from the site of the Biblical city. The emphasis on using the name "Megiddo" was, in part, related to the overall propaganda effort to link victory in the Middle-East to the domestically well-known locations from the Bible, and thus boost British morale at home. The battle for "Armageddon" did not receive nearly the attention which might have been expected, however, with Eiten Bar-Yosef stating that, "[e]ven Cyril Falls’s Armageddon 1918 (1964), a detailed study of Allenby’s advance, does not elaborate on the metaphor, and it is not difficult to see why: Allenby’s swift progress up to Damascus was certainly not the bloody, colossal, definitive clash envisioned in John’s Revelation; that was taking place in the trenches of the Western Front."
A number of historians have claimed the offensive which resulted in the capture of the Gaza to Beersheba line and Jerusalem, and the Megiddo operation were similar. In this regard, it is argued that they were both a cavalry envelopment of the Ottoman flank, and that the breakthroughs both came at unexpected locations. At Gaza–Beersheba, the breakthrough occurred at the eastern end of the front line at Beersheba instead of Gaza as the Ottomans had expected, while at Megiddo the breakthrough occurred on the Mediterranean coast at the western end of the front line when it was expected across the Jordan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_campaign |
History of domes in South Asia | The first major Mughal building is the domed tomb of Humayun, built between 1562 and 1571 by a Persian architect. The central dome likely has a core of brick, as can be seen in the later stripped tomb of Khan-i-Khanan. The central dome is faced with marble blocks in attached to the core by alternating wide and narrow layers and there is evidence of the use of iron cramps to secure them. Iron cramps may also help form a tension ring at the base of the dome. The central double dome covers an octagonal central chamber about 15 meters wide and is accompanied by small domed chattri made of brick and faced with stone. Smaller domes were widely made with rectangular bricks beginning in the 16th century, the necessary curvature being created by tapering the mortar joints. Chatris, the domed kiosks on pillars characteristic of Mughal roofs, were adopted from their Hindu use as cenotaphs.
The Taj Mahal in Agra, also a brick structure clad primarily in marble, was begun in 1632 and mostly completed in 1636; the rest of the extensive complex would not be finished before 1643. The tomb was built for Mumtaz Mahal, a wife of emperor Shah Jahan, after her death in 1631. The central double dome covers a diameter of 22 meters. The inner dome is three meters thick and over 30 meters below the outer dome. The outer dome rests upon drum walls five metes thick. The drum acts as an optical correction for the view from ground level. The height of the dome, half the total height, is consistent with early Timurid architecture, but against the trend of Mughal architecture up to that point. The fusion of Persian and Indian architecture can be seen in the dome's shape: the bulbous shape derives from Persian Timurid domes, and the finial with lotus leaf base is derived from Hindu temples. The inner dome has a decorative triangulated pattern modeled after plaster mold work, but here carved in marble. The entire complex is highly symmetrical. On the western side of the tomb is a red sandstone mosque with three bulbous domes faced with marble, and on the eastern side is mirror-image assembly hall that likewise has three marble domes. At the center of the tomb hall lies the cenotaph of Mumtaz Mahal, with her husband's off-center to the west. The actual sarcophagi lie directly below, in the crypt, but in the same arrangement.
The last major Islamic tomb built in India was the tomb of Safdar Jang (1753–54). It is a brick structure clad in sandstone and marble stripped from the earlier tomb of Khan-i-Khanan (d. 1627). Shallow brick domes cover the perimeter chambers of the building, and the central dome is reportedly triple-shelled, with two relatively flat inner brick domes and an outer bulbous marble dome, although it may actually be that the marble and second brick domes are joined everywhere but under the lotus leaf finial at the top.
The tomb of Mohammed Adil Shah (d. 1656) in Bijapur is one of the largest masonry domes in the world. Called the Gol Gumbaz, or Round Dome, it has an internal diameter of 41.15 meters and a height of 54.25 meters. The dome was built with layers of brick between thick layers of mortar and rendered on both faces, so that the dome acts as a concrete shell reinforced with bricks. It is 2.6 meters thick at the base. The dome was the most technically advanced to be built in the Deccan, and exemplifies the flowering of art and architecture that occurred during the period of the Adil Shahi Sultanate's greatest extent. Radial cracks were repaired in 1936-7 by the application of reinforcement to the outside of the dome, which was then covered by sprayed concrete. Both the Gol Gumbaz dome and the smaller dome of the Jama Masjid, a 57-foot wide dome also at Bijapur, are above distinctive transition zones consisting of eight intersecting arches that narrow the openings to be covered.
Mughal mosques, such as Jama Mosque, Fatehpur Sikri, Jama Masjid, Delhi, and Madrasa Ghaziuddin Khan, had a prayer hall covered with three domes along the qibla wall. The Badshahi Mosque, one of the jewels of Mughal architecture, and South Asia's second-largest mosque, built by Aurengzeb in 1673, is described by historian Catherine B. Asher as:
The prayer chamber adheres generally to the plan of Shah Jahan's Delhi mosque constructed about two decades earlier, although it is considerably larger. While closely modeled on Shah Jahan-period congregational mosques, the Badshahi mosque reveals a greater sense of spatial tension in keeping with the new aesthetic established early in Aurangzeb's reign. This is achieved, in part, by the sheer scale of the complex and by the facade's arched openings that are small in comparison to the building's overall massive size. Further underscoring this spatial tension are the bulbous domes and the minarets at the compound corners that emphasize the sense of verticality.
Domes appear frequently in Sikh architecture, which was greatly influenced by Mughal architecture. Most of Historical Sikh buildings were built towards the end of 18th century. Domes in Sikh architecture are mostly ribbed with lotus design at the top and floral motifs at the bottom. These domes start with wide base and reach maximum circumference when they are less than halfway up. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_domes_in_South_Asia |
Menelik II | Previous to his marriage to Taytu Betul, Menelik fathered several natural children. Among them, he chose to recognise three specific children (two daughters and one son) as being his progeny. These were:
A daughter, Woizero Shoaregga Menelik, born 1867. She would marry twice and become the mother of:
A son, Abeto Wossen Seged Wodajo, born of the first marriage; never considered for the succession due to dwarfism
A daughter, Woizero Zenebework Mikael, who was married at age twelve and died in childbirth one year later
A son, the purported Emperor Iyasu V. He nominally succeeded upon Menelik's death in 1913, but was never crowned; he was deposed in 1916 by powerful nobles.
A daughter, Woizero (later Empress) Zewditu Menelik, born 1876, died 1930. She married four times and had some children, but none of them survived to adulthood. She was proclaimed Empress in her own right in 1916, but was a figurehead, with ruling power in the hands of regent Ras Tafari Makonnen, who succeeded her in 1930 as Emperor Haile Selassie.
A son, Abeto Asfa Wossen Menelik, born 1873. He died unwed and childless when he was about fifteen years of age.
Menelik's only recognised son, Abeto Asfa Wossen Menelik, died unwed and childless when he was about fifteen years of age, leaving him with only two daughters. The elder daughter, Woizero Shoaregga, was first married to Dejazmatch Wodajo Gobena, the son of Ras Gobena Dachi. They had a son, Abeto Wossen Seged Wodajo, but this grandson of Menelik II was eliminated from the succession due to dwarfism. In 1892, twenty-five-year-old Woizero Shoaregga was married for a second time to forty-two-year-old Ras Mikael of Wollo. They had two children, namely a daughter, Woizero Zenebework Mikael, who would be married at the age of twelve to the much older Ras Bezabih Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and would die in childbirth a year later; and a son, Lij Iyasu, who would nominally succeed as Emperor after Menelik's death in 1913, but would never be crowned, and would be deposed by powerful nobles in favour of Menelik's younger daughter Zewditu in 1916.
Menelik's younger daughter, Zewditu Menelik, had a long and chequered life. She was married four times, and eventually became Empress in her own right, the first woman to hold that position in Ethiopia since the Queen of Sheba. She was only ten years old when Menelik got her married to Ras Araya Selassie Yohannes, the fifteen-year-old son of Emperor Yohannes IV, in 1886. In May 1888, Ras Araya Selassie died and Zewditu became a widow at age twelve. She was married two more times for brief periods to Gwangul Zegeye and Wube Atnaf Seged before marrying Gugsa Welle in 1900 CE. Gugsa Welle was the nephew of Empress Taytu Betul, Menelik's third wife. Zewditu had some children, but none of them survived to adulthood. Menelik died in 1913, and his grandson Iyasu claimed the throne on principle of seniority. However, it was suspected that Iyasu was a secret convert to Islam, which was the religion of his paternal ancestors, and having a Muslim on the throne would have grave implications for Ethiopia in future generations. Therefore, Iyasu was never crowned; he was deposed by nobles in 1916, in favour of his aunt, Zewditu. However, Zewditu (aged 40 at that time) had no surviving children (all her children had died young) and the nobles did not want her husband and his family to exercise power and eventually occupy the throne. Therefore, Zewditu's cousin Ras Tafari Makonnen was named both heir to the throne and regent of the empire. Zewditu had ceremonial duties to perform and wielded powers of arbitration and moral influence, but ruling power was vested in the hands of regent Ras Tafari Makonnen, who succeeded her as Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930.
Apart from the three recognised natural children, Menelik was rumoured to be the father of some other children also. These include Ras Birru Wolde Gabriel and Dejazmach Kebede Tessema. The latter, in turn, was later rumoured to be the natural grandfather of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the communist leader of the Derg, who eventually deposed the monarchy and assumed power in Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menelik_II |
Syrian literature | Since 1960, the year he published his first collection of short stories, Zakaria Tamer has been one of the best-known prose authors among the Arab public. In his work, he places figures from the Arabic literary tradition in new contexts and thus alludes to the present of his readers. Apart from many short stories, Tamer also wrote books for children and as columnist for Arabic newspapers. After working for many years as a public employee in the Syrian Ministry of Culture and at Syrian state television, he moved to London in 1981, where he also worked as a cultural journalist for Arabic newspapers and magazines.
Haidar Haidar (1936–2023), who came from a village on the Mediterranean coast north of Tartus with a majority Alawite population, was known for his critical attitude towards political and religious institutions and his controversial topics. He wrote seventeen works of novels, short stories, essays and biographies, including Az-Zaman al-Muhish (The Desolate Time), which was listed as number 7 by the Arab Writers Union as one of the 100 best Arabic novels of the 20th century. His novel Walimah li A'ashab al-Bahr, (A Feast for the Seaweeds), first published in Beirut in 1983, was banned in several Arab countries and led to an angry reaction from clerics at Al-Azhar University when the book was reprinted in Egypt in 2000. The clerics issued a fatwa , banning the novel and accused Haidar of heresy and insulting Islam. The plot focuses on two left-wing Iraqi intellectuals who fled their country in the 1970s and who blame dictators and authoritarian politics for the oppression in the Arab world.
Ghada al-Samman (* 1942) comes from a bourgeois Damascene family. Her father was for some time president of Damascus University. After initially studying English literature, she went to Beirut to obtain a Master of Arts in Theatre Studies at the American University of Beirut. Among other topics, her works deal with the Six-Day War and the problems of Lebanon before and during the Lebanese Civil War, which began in 1975 and only ended in 1990. She is also considered a feminist author due to her texts that deal with the social and psychological restrictions for women in the Arab world. Al-Samman initially worked as a journalist and published more than 40 novels, short stories, collections of poetry and autobiographical works that have been translated into several languages. Her novels and short stories express strong Arab nationalist sentiment and criticize Zionism by siding with the Palestinians. In some of her novels, such as Beirut '75, she exposes class differences, gender conflicts and corruption in the Lebanese capital and indirectly predicted the civil war that would soon follow. Al-Samman never returned to Syria after her years in Beirut and has lived in Paris since the mid-1980s.
The early works of the Syrian Kurdish writer Salim Barakat (* 1951), born in Qamishli, are characterized by his youthful experiences with the diverse cultural influences of the Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Circassian and Yazidi ethnic groups in this region bordering Turkey. In 1970, Barakat traveled to Damascus to study Arabic literature, but after a year moved on to Beirut, where he lived until 1982. During his stay in Beirut, he published five volumes of poetry, a diary and two volumes of autobiographies. His volume of short stories from 1980, The Iron Grasshopper contains depictions of the life of the Kurdish population in his homeland. In 1982 he moved to Cyprus and worked as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Al Karmel, whose editor was the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. In 1999 Barakat emigrated to Sweden, where he has lived ever since.
Khaled Khalifa (1964–2023), born in a village near Aleppo and living in Damascus from the late 1990s until his death, was a Syrian novelist, screenwriter and poet who is also one of the well-known Arab authors. Khalifa studied law at the University of Aleppo. He was co-founder and co-editor of the literary magazine Alif, a forum for experimental writing, and a member of the Literary Forum at the University of Aleppo. Khalifa wrote novels and screenplays for films and television series that were adapted into films by Syrian directors. In 2013 he was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and was nominated three times for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. His works were often critical of Syria's Ba'athist government and were banned in the country and edited by Lebanese publishers. His novels In Praise of Hatred, No Knives in the Kitchens of This City, Death is Hard Work and No One Prayed Over Their Graves have been translated into several languages.
Other notable Syrian prose writers since the late 20th century include Khairy Alzahaby (1946-2022) Taissier Khalaf, a novelist and cultural historian born in 1967 in Quneitra, Fawwaz Haddad (b. 1947) and Mustafa Khalifa (b. 1948), two of the many writers who included war and imprisonment in their stories, Ya'rab al-Eissa (b. 1969), Haitham Hussein (b. 1978), Ghamar Mahmoud (b. 1980), as well as a growing number of women writers mentioned below. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_literature |
Politics of the Comoros | Sultanates in the late nineteenth century used a cyclic age system and hierarchical lineage membership to provide the foundation for participation in the political process. In the capital, "the sultan was assisted by his ministers and by a madjelis, an advisory council composed of elders, whom he consulted regularly". Apart from local administration, the age system was used to include the population in decision making, depending on the scope of the decision being made. For example, the elders of the island of Njazidja held considerable influence on the authority of the sultan. Though sultanates granted rights to their free inhabitants, were provided with warriors during war and taxed the towns under their authority, their definition as a state is open to debate. The islands' incorporation as a province of the colony of Madagascar into the French colonial empire marked the end of the sultanates.
Despite French colonization, Comorans identify first with kinship or regional ties and rarely ever with the central government. This is a lingering effect of the sovereign sultanates of pre-colonial times. French colonial administration was based on a misconception that the sultanates operated as absolute monarchs: district boundaries were the same as the sultanates', multiple new taxes forced men into wage labor on colonial plantations and was reinforced through a compulsory public labor system that had little effect on infrastructure. French policy was hampered by an absence of settlers, effective communication across islands, rough geographical terrain and hostility towards the colonial government. Policies were made to apply to Madagascar as a whole and seldom to the nuances of each province: civil servants were typically Christian, unaware of local customs and unable to speak the local language. The French established the Ouatou Akouba in 1915, a local form of governance based on "customary structures" already in place that attempted to model itself after the age system in place under the sultanates. Their understanding of the elders' council as a corporate group bypassed the reality that there were men "who had accomplished the necessary customary rituals to be accorded the status of elder and thus be eligible to participate in the political process in the village", which effectively rendered the French elders' council ineffective. Though the Ouatou Akouba was disbanded, it resulted in the consolidation and formalization of the age system as access to power in the customary and local government spheres. The French failure to establish a functioning state in the Comoros has had repercussions in the post-independence era. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Comoros |
Women in Iraq | Some reported issues related to women in Kurdish society include genital mutilation, honor killings, domestic violence, female infanticide and polygamy. Majority of reports have come from Iraq where the Kurdish and Iraqi population have been poorly educated and illiteracy is still a big problem among citizens. However, some reported issues have not been taken seriously, because all reported issues are common among the populations with whom they live.
Some Kurds in small populated areas, especially uneducated Kurds are organized in patrilineal clans, there is patriarchal control of marriage and property, women are generally treated in many ways like property. Rural Kurdish women are often barred from making their own decisions regarding sexuality or husbands. Arranged marriages, and in some places child marriages, are common. Some Kurdish men, especially religious Kurds, also practice polygamy. However, polygamy has almost disappeared from Kurdish culture, especially in Syria after Rojava made it illegal. Some Kurdish women from uneducated, religious and poor families who took their own decisions with marriage or had affairs have become victims of violence, including beatings, honor killings and in extreme cases pouring acid on faces (very rare) (Kurdish Women's Rights Watch 2007). Kurds generally see having large families as the ideal.
Women's rights activists have said that after the elections in 1992, only five of the 105 elected members of parliament were women, and that women's initiatives were even actively opposed by Kurdish male politicians. Women's rights activist Tanya Gilly Khailany, who was a member of the Iraqi Parliament between 2006 – 2010, pushed for the legislation of 25 per cent quota for women in Iraqi provincial councils.
Honor killings and other forms of violence against women have increased since the creation of Iraqi Kurdistan, and "both the KDP and PUK claimed that women's oppression, including ‘honor killings’, are part of Kurdish ‘tribal and Islamic culture’". New laws against honor killing and polygamy were introduced in Iraqi Kurdistan, however it was noted by Amnesty International that the prosecution of honor killings remains low, and the implementation of the anti-polygamy resolution (in the PUK-controlled areas) has not been consistent. On the other hand, women rights activists also had some successes in Iraqi Kurdistan, and it was claimed that "the rise of conservative nationalist forces and the women's movement are two sides of the same coin of Kurdish nationalism."
Scholars like Mojab (1996) and Amir Hassanpour (2001) have argued that the patriarchal system in Kurdish regions has been as strong as in other Middle Eastern regions. In 1996, Mojab claimed that the Iraqi Kurdish nationalist movement "discourages any manifestation of womanhood or political demands for gender equality."
In 2001, Persian researcher Amir Hassanpour claimed that "linguistic, discursive, and symbolic violence against women is ubiquitous" in the Kurdish language, matched by various forms of physical and emotional violence.
In 2005, Marjorie P. Lasky from CODEPINK claimed that since the PUK and KDP parties took power in Northern Iraq 1991, "hundreds of women were murdered in honor killings for not wearing hijab and girls could not attend school", and both parties have “continued attempts to suppress the women's organizations”. Marjorie P. Lasky also said that U.S. military personnel have committed crimes of sexual abuse and physical assault against women and they are one of the reasons why women rights have worsened in Iraq. The honor killing and self-immolation condoned or tolerated by the Kurdish administration in Iraqi Kurdistan has been labeled as "gendercide" by Mojab (2003). Lasky concluded: "More widely reported are the Iraqi Kurdish nationalist parties’ "disregard of women's issues and their attempts to suppress women's organizations". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Iraq |
Mauritania | A Mauritanian lawmaker, Mohammed Al Mukhtar, claimed that many of the country's people supported the takeover of a government that had become "an authoritarian regime" under a president who had "marginalized the majority in parliament". However, Abdel Aziz's regime was isolated internationally, and became subject to diplomatic sanctions and the cancellation of some aid projects. Domestically, a group of parties coalesced around Abdallahi to continue protesting the coup, which caused the junta to ban demonstrations and crack down on opposition activists. International and internal pressure eventually forced the release of Abdallahi, who was instead placed under house arrest in his home village. The new government broke off relations with Israel.
After the coup Abdel Aziz insisted on holding new presidential elections to replace Abdallahi, but was forced to reschedule them due to internal and international opposition. During the spring of 2009, the junta negotiated an understanding with some opposition figures and international parties. As a result, Abdallahi formally resigned under protest, as it became clear that some opposition forces had defected from him and most international players, notably including France and Algeria, now aligned with Abdel Aziz. The United States continued to criticize the coup, but did not actively oppose the elections.
Abdallahi's resignation allowed the election of Abdel Aziz as civilian president, on 18 July, by a 52% majority.
Many of Abdallahi's former supporters criticized this as a political ploy and refused to recognize the results. Despite complaints, the elections were almost unanimously accepted by Western, Arab and African countries, which lifted sanctions and resumed relations with Mauritania. By late summer, Abdel Aziz appeared to have secured his position and to have gained widespread international and internal support. Some figures, such as Senate chairman Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, continued to refuse the new order and call for Abdel Aziz's resignation.
In February 2011 the waves of the Arab Spring spread to Mauritania, where thousands of people took to the streets of the capital.
In November 2014 Mauritania was invited as a non-member guest nation to the G20 summit in Brisbane.
The national flag of Mauritania was changed on 5 August 2017. Two red stripes were added as a symbol of the country's sacrifice and defense.
In August 2019 Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was sworn in as president.
In June 2021 former president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was arrested amidst a corruption probe into allegations of embezzlement. In December 2023, Aziz was sentenced to 5 years in prison for corruption. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritania |
Legal system of Saudi Arabia | The U.S. State department considers that “discrimination against women is a significant problem” in Saudi Arabia and that women have few political or social rights. After her 2008 visit, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women noted the lack of women's autonomy and the absence of a law criminalizing violence against women. The World Economic Forum 2012 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Saudi Arabia 131st out of 135 countries for gender parity, ahead of Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen.
Every adult woman has to have a close male relative as her "guardian". As a result, Human Rights Watch has described the position of Saudi women as no different from being a minor, with little authority over their own lives. The guardian is entitled to make a number of critical decisions on a woman's behalf. These include giving approval for the woman to hold some types of business licenses, to study at a university or college and to work if the type of business is not "deemed appropriate for a woman." Even where a guardian’s approval is not legally required, some officials will still ask for it. However, the Saudi guardianship system was abolished in August 2019, allowing women to travel and own businesses without the need of a guardian's approval. Women also face discrimination in the courts, where the testimony of one man equals that of two women, and in family and inheritance law (see above).
Women formerly required permission to obtain a passport and travel. This restriction was removed on July 26, 2019. Crown Prince Mohammed also extended to women the right to receive equal treatment in the workplace and to obtain family documents from the government in August 2019.
The religious police mutawa impose restrictions on women when in public. These restrictions include requiring women to sit in separate specially designated family sections in restaurants, to wear an abaya (a loose-fitting, full-length black cloak covering the entire body) and to conceal their hair. Women also risk arrest for riding in a vehicle driven by a male who is not an employee or a close male relative. Although there was no written ban on women driving cars, it was previously effectively illegal for women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, as a Saudi driving license is required by law and these were not issued to women. Driving licenses started being issued to women in June 2018, and the effective ban was lifted on the 24th of June 2018.
In 2013, Saudi Arabia registered its first female trainee lawyer, Arwa al-Hujaili. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_system_of_Saudi_Arabia |
Ahmadiyya in Egypt | As evinced by Abu᾽l-῾Ata Jalandhari’s foreword to his 1933 tract The Cairo Debate, Ahmadi activity in the Arab world during this period was primarily concerned with counteracting Christian missionary efforts against Islam and regenerating what the movement believed was the true Islamic spirit among Muslims. In this context, Ahmadi teachings, specifically regarding the death of Jesus and his status within Islam, concurred, in principle, with the views of key Salafi (or proto-Salafi) figures such as Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, both of whom rejected the bodily ascension of Jesus and accepted the view that he escaped crucifixion, died a natural death and will not be coming again. These views were expressed in a comprehensive Qur'anic commentary published serially in al-Manār, although in contrast to the Ahmadi view which maintained that Jesus survived crucifixion, they held that he was not crucified at all. Rida also discussed the Ahmadi theory of Jesus’ burial in Kashmir in a positive tone—as did the Egyptian literary figure ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad. Similarly, Mustafa al-Maraghi, the rector of Al-Azhar University, too believed that Jesus had died a natural death and interpreted his ascension and return metaphorically.
In response to a question put forward by an Indian Ahmadi to Mahmud Shaltut, a teacher (later shaykh) of Al-Azhar, as to whether, according to the Quran and sunnah, Jesus was alive or dead, and whether or not he will return at the end of time, Shaltut issued a fatwa in 1942 stating that according to the Quran, Jesus had died and that it contained no indication that he lives on in heaven. As to the hadith material concerning his return, Shaltut questioned their soundness and concluded that a good Muslim did not have to believe in Jesus' return. Although the fatwa—and the ensuing discussion surrounding it—has been seen, in the Egyptian context, as indicating that Ahmadi interpretations were not necessarily ruled out as heretical during this period, scholarly opinion on this issue was far from consensual and the fatwa met with immediate resistance from other teachers at Al-Azhar such as Siddiq al-Ghumari who issued a statement strongly upholding the traditional Muslim belief in Jesus' physical ascension, arguing for the soundness of hadith literature concerning his return and declaring it among the fundamentals of Islam. Other scholars at Al-Azhar took a neutral position and declared that both views were "thoroughly Islamic". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_in_Egypt |
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